Nightmare Abbey Kindle Edition

Originally published: 1818 (the same year as FRANKENSTEIN)58 pp. on Kindle, about 100 pp. in the Penquin Classics. Amazon says this takes less than ninety minutes to read. George Saintsbury says about an hour. Your mileage (and mine) may vary, but this did read very quickly, despite the tediousness of some of the gags.Here is an early excerpt- you may judge whether this is congenial or would bore and frustrate you:... Disappointed both in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity, he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in Christabel, 'he woke and found his lady dead,' and remained a very consolate widower, with one small child.This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a fit of toedium vitae, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in the comprehensive phrase of felo de se; on which account, Mr Glowry held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull...When I first discovered Peacock for myself, about twenty years ago, I thought he was the 'hidden classic,' the great writer no one knew. All his books are quick, sometimes funny, epicurean and satirical. Aldous Huxley's early novels were said to be modeled on Peacock's.NIGHTMARE ABBEY has retained a little more notoriety than HEADLONG HALL or CROTCHET CASTLE because of the caricatures of Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron, all present, all lightly mocked. One more excerpt:... I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest which I—you—take in my cousin Scythrop—MR FLOSKYPardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it, you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.MARIONETTAI will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but—MR FLOSKYSubtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you participating in the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.MARIONETTAIndeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you for the purpose of obtaining information.MR FLOSKY (shaking his head)No one ever sought me for such a purpose before...

To be honest, I found this novel largely beyond my comprehension most of the time I was reading it. I could see that it was satirical given the odd names (Mr.Toolbad, Mr. Listless, Mr Larnyx, the clergyman, etc.), the absurd plot ( A man who must choose between two women but finds he cannot give up either one. promises suicide and later changes his mind), the preoccupation with depressed people constantly discussing morbid subjects and the general tone of boredom, pretension and excess surrounding the whole thing. What I didn't know was that its author, Thomas Peacock, was mocking the absurdities of the Romantic movement and that his characters were based on actual people such as Shelley and Collerdge who were contemporaries of the author.. In the end then, I would advise taking a refresher course on Romantic thought and literature before reading the novel. Without it, you miss the illusions and inside jokes just as I did and will find the joy in the exercise is lost. I generally like the older classics but this one was a decided exception. I gave three stars perhaps because I wasn't sure if the fault was more in me than the book.

Thomas Love Peacock was good buddies with Percy Bysshe Shelley, perhaps the most wildly melodramatic English poet of all time, and in contention to be considered the first hippie revolutionary ever. An excellent poet, too.Peacock made friendly fun of Shelley and other doom and gloom types in his most popular novel, NIGHTMARE ABBEY, which is available free from Kindle.But pay the two dollars and get this Tredition Classics edition. There are italics instead of capitals, and they spell tête-à-tête correctly, all accents included and in italics, without even pausing for breath. The margins are good, the spelling is perfect ... all things that cannot be said of the free editions.This is, like Peacock's other novels, a mere novella in length, and consists mainly of crazy conversations among lovable crazies like Shelley. Saintsbury called it "caviare to the general," and if that means you won't like it, then don't buy it -- but don't buy THIS edition rather than any of the others, because this one is very much the best.If, on the other hand, you have a yen for early nineteenth century British eccentric fiction, mixing wit and satire and quitting before the typical eccentric-lover can get bored ... then, again, this Tredition Classics edition is the best, and you should get it fast. It's the only book I've ever read that makes fun of Shelley and still sounds intelligent.

I downloaded this novella from Amazon because a clickbait "best of" list recommended it as a great horror novel of the 19th century. Nightmare Abbey taught me that the clickbait sites are using bots to make their lists. The only mention of anything vaguely horrible was the title, a mysterious person walking on the beach, and a ghost that turned out to be a sleepwalking servant.That said, Nightmare Abbey is a well-written and entertaining read. It's less than 200 pages long, free from Amazon.com, and a fun way to spend a couple of evenings away from political craziness.From Wikipedia: "Nightmare Abbey is a Gothic topical satire in which the author pokes light-hearted fun at the romantic movement in contemporary English literature, in particular its obsession with morbid subjects, misanthropy and transcendental philosophical systems. Most of the characters in the novella are based on historical figures whom Peacock wishes to pillory."

Brilliantly funny but be warned...despite many Internet articles claiming this to be one of the scariest novels ever written, this is *not* a scary novel nor was it ever intended to be scary. It is social commentary, using the gothic romance style and Peacock is poking fun of writers like Shelley and Byron. Brilliant, but if you are looking for a scary horror novel, you will be hugely disappointed.

I tend not to write reviews of what I regard as classical works due to there already being many reviews for such works, and that its unlikely that I could add any new interpretation or insight over and above that which is already written.I can however, confirm that the Kindle version was delivered promptly, without effort or problem and works perfectly on my Kindle.It is worthy of note however, that this work will not prove easy to read for everyone, and that the author was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they were thought to ‘influence’ each other’s work.

This is a lovely parody of the Gothic genre with loads going on in it, most of which had me chuckling along with it and some of which had me laughing out loud. (I particularly liked the appearance of the "spectre" draped in a white sheet and a bloody-red turban, which drove poor old Mr Toobad to dive out of the window and into the moat, only to be netted by Mr Asterias and his son Aquarius, thinking that they had, at last, captured a mermaid.) I also loved the gentle mockery of the poetic giants of the day (Byron and Shelley). Finally, like all gothic parodies, I really felt that this had some true gothic horrors at its heart (Scythrop's misfortunes in love - either at the mercy of the conniving and flirtatious Marionnetta or dependent on the whims of the gothic heroine fleeing from her "enforced marriage" Celinda, social faux-pas, philosophy along the Burkean sublime lines, comical servants and a suitably ruined gothic setting). Marvellous.

A delightfully zany tale of Gothic goings on. While some - or perhaps many - references to classical, historical, philosophical, and literary sources may be elusive for the modern reader it hardly matters, because the writing fizzes along and the characters sparkle wonderfully. And the tantalising references may well send you off to consult Kant, Byron, Dr Johnson and any number of 'lady novelists' of the age! It may be a hilarious Gothic satire, but human nature reveals itself on every page, and indeed a page-turner it is.

The novella is a light-hearted parody of Romanticism, the Gothick novel and Recency philosophy. It is actually replete with learned allusions, some of which are glossed by Peacock. I read the book quickly and often smiled or chuckled. The plot is slight, but Peacock wrote well. A pleasant read!

I bought it to add to the breadth of my reading and found it surprisingly accessible. I'm sure I missed many of the learned allusions but still enjoyed it as an entertaining read.It was also refreshingly concise, unlike some other books of this type I have read.