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The Works of Thomas Love Peacock, Including His Novels, Poems, Fugitive Pieces, Criticisms, Etc., with a Preface by the Right Hon. Lord Houghton, a Biographical Notice by his Grand-daughter, Edith Nicholls, and Portrait. (In 3 Volumes)
Published by Richard Bentley and Son,, London , 1875. First EditionHardcover, 8vo, in three-quarter brown morocco over marble paper covered boards, the spine with five raised bands, the compartments decorated with gilt, titles and volume numbers to the second and fourth compartments and date London/1875 at foot. Bound by F.P. Hathaway Binder, Boston as stamp signed verso front endpaper. Top edge gilt, others trimmed. Watercolor effect marbled end papers. CONDITION: Very Good. Light marks, occasional toning and light foxing, a couple of dog-eared pages noted. Small losses to head of spine vols 2 and 3. Still, an excellent reading copy. **Included are all of Peacock's seven notable satiric novels, including the comic-gothic 1818 "Nightmare Abbey," which skewers the work of contemporary Romantic writers Byron and especially Percy Bysshe Shelley, making light of a young gentleman, Scythrop Glowry's, romantic entanglements with two very differing women (said to allude to Shelley's first and second wives, Harriet Westbrook Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,) complete with secret passages in a moated, slightly ruined castellated manor. Parody on the work of amateur naturalists, in the form of Mr. Asterious (and his son Aquarius; great names!) has the visitors hunting mermaids among the fens when not partaking of the evening's cigars and madeira. The impenetrability of first-gen transcendentalist thinkers, in the character of Mr. Floskey, based on Immanuel Kant, for instance, are also introduced. Other notable titles in the novels collection include the action-packed Sherwood forest-set "Maid Marion," which undoubtably sets the tenor for later film and television adaptations of a resolute and independent female character." THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK (1875-1866), may be best-remembered as the friend, confidante and literary executor of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and this volume contains his correspondence with the Lake poet. Name-dropped are a host of the Romantic poets, including Coleridge. But Peacock 's unique talents as a poet, essayist, dramatist and comic novelist with a flair for adventure, make his work seem remarkably droll and fresh to this modern eye, similar and yet arguably more comic than his contemporary, Sir Walter Scott. (AMJ)
Ref: FICT19 9878
$245.00