Headlong HallThomas Love Peacock (1785‒1866) is one of the most distinctive prose satirists of the Romantic period. The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock offers the first complete text of these works to appear for more than half a century. Headlong Hall (1816), Peacock's earliest work of dialogic and satirical fiction, was the most popular of his tales during his lifetime and considered his signature novel. An episodic plot and a country house setting provide the framework for a sparkling intellectual comedy that embraces music, gastronomy, philosophy, politics, craniology, painting, and landscape gardening. This edition supplies an authoritative text and a comprehensive introduction tracing the genesis, composition, publication, reception, and revision of the novel. Extensive explanatory notes throw light on the Welsh backdrop to the fiction as well as on the literary, political, social, and intellectual contexts of Peacock's innovative topical satire. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ancient Ap-Breakneck Ap-Head Ap-Rhaiader avarice barouch beautiful Cephalis benevolence biped bottle breakfast Brindle-mew bumper Burgundy Caernarvon Cambrian Caprioletta CHAP Chro Chromatic Cranium dancing daughter deterioration eevery Escot evil favour feelings fiddle fire Foster Gall gentleman gude hand happy Headlong Ap Headlong Ap-Headlong Headlong Hall heeltap Holyhead honour human race Jenkison ladies lake lament little butler lived Llanberris Llwyd look Lord Littlebrain luxury MAC LAUREL mair Meirionnydd ment Milestone mind Miss Cephalis Miss Graziosa Miss Philomela Miss Tenorina moral morning nature never Nightshade nium oatcake observe organ Panoscope parteecular party perfectibility picturesque pless poetry point of rock Poppyseed portunity profound Reverend Doctor Gaster rock round scene seated Sexton side Sir Patrick O'Prism skull of Cadwallader species Squire Headlong sure taste TERZETTO tevil ther thing thought three philosophers tiger tion tower Treacle truth vanity walk whole wild wine words
Popular passages
Page 4 - I cannot tell how the truth may be : I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
Page 99 - Vast rocks and precipices, intersected with little torrents, formed the barrier on the left : on the right, the triple summit of Moelwyn reared its majestic boundary : in the depth was that sea of mountains, the wild and stormy outline of the Snowdonian chain, with the giant Wyddfa towering in the midst. The mountain-frame remains unchanged, unchangeable : but the liquid mirror it enclosed is gone.
Page 39 - I distinguish the picturesque and the beautiful, and I add to them, in the laying out of grounds, a, third and distinct character, which I call unexpectedness.
Page 87 - ... fountain is thrown to a prodigious elevation. In the other is a ponderous stone, so exactly balanced as to be apparently ready to fall on the head of any person who may happen to be beneath :* and there is Lord Littlebrain walking under it.
Page 88 - MILESTONE. Bad taste, Miss Tenorina. Bad taste, I assure you. Here is the spot improved. The trees are cut down : the stones are cleared away : this is an octagonal pavilion, exactly on the centre of the summit : and there you see Lord Littlebrain, on the top of the pavilion, enjoying the prospect with a telescope. SQUIRE HEADLONG. Glorious, egad ! MR.
Page 8 - Mr Escot, who was somewhat younger than Mr Foster, but rather more pale and saturnine in his aspect, here took up the thread of the discourse, observing that the proposition just advanced seemed to him perfectly contrary to the true state of the case: "for...
Page 89 - Gothic, moss-grown structure, half-bosomed in trees. Near the casement of that turret is an owl peeping from the ivy. SQUIRE HEADLONG. And devilish wise he looks. MR. MILESTONE. Here is the new house, without a tree near it, standing in the midst of an undulating lawn : a white, polished, angular building, reflected to a nicety in this waveless lake : and there you see Lord Littlebrain looking out of the window.
Page 37 - ... of larch, shall rise upon its ruins. One age, sir, has brought to light the treasures of ancient learning; a second has penetrated into the depths of metaphysics ; a third has brought to perfection the science of astronomy ; but it was reserved for the exclusive genius of the present times, to invent the noble art of picturesque gardening, which has given, as it were, a new tint to the complexion of nature, and a new outline to the physiognomy of the universe ! " " Give me leave," said Sir Patrick...
Page 33 - Mr. Panscope, the chemical, botanical, geological, astronomical, mathematical, metaphysical, meteorological, anatomical, physiological, galvanistical, musical, pictorial, bibliographical critical philosopher, who had run through the whole circle of the sciences, and understood them all equally well.
Page 85 - Portugal laurel, there a juniper ; here a lauristinus, there a spruce fir ; here a larch, there a lilac ; here a rhododendron, there an arbutus. The stream, you see, is become a canal : the banks are perfectly smooth and green, sloping to the water's edge : and there is Lord Littlebrain, rowing in an elegant boat.