Thomas Love Peacock

This version of the Robin Hood legend satirizes English politicians and reformers.

These two novels contain characters who are either representative types, or thinly veiled caricatures of Peacock's contemporaries, who gather in country houses to eat, drink and discuss. These tales poke fun at contemporary attitudes and ideas, such as the Romantic literary movement.

Headlong Hall ; Nightmare Abbey ; Maid Marian ; Crotchet Castle

Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln, had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called blue devils.