Crotchet Castle

by Thomas Love Peacock

Overview

First published in 1831, "Crotchet Castle" is the sixth novel by Thomas Love Peacock. Similar to his previous novel "Headlong Hall", the story revolves around an interesting group of obsessive eccentrics and their witty and entertaining conversations. The story begins with a gathering in one of the character's villa on the Thames and includes a canal journey towards Wales. Startlingly witty and infinity entertaining, "Crotchet Castle" is recommended for lovers of clever satirical writing and is not to be missed by fans of Peacock's fantastic work. Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 - 23 January 1866) was an English poet, novelist, and important figure in the East India Company. A good friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, they both had a significant influence on each other's work. Peacock was most famous for writing satirical novels, which usually involved characters sat around a table discussing contemporary philosophical ideas. Other notable works by this author include: "Headlong Hall" (1815), "Gryll Grange" (1861), and "Melincourt" (1817). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with intoductory essays by Sir Walter Raleigh and Virginia Woolf.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781528704342
Publisher:	Classic Books Library
Publication date:	03/28/2018
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.34(d)

About the Author

Freya Johnston is a University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking, 1709–1791 (2005) and co-editor of Samuel Johnson: The Arc of the Pendulum (2012).

Matthew Bevis is a University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at Keble College, Oxford. He is author of The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce (2007) and Comedy: A Very Short Introduction (2012), and editor of Some Versions of Empson (2007) and The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry (2013).

Table of Contents

General editor's preface; Chronology; Introduction; Crotchet Castle; Appendix A. Peacock's Preface of 1837; Appendix B. Holograph fragment of Chapter 4 (c.1830); Appendix C. Holograph fragment of Chapter 5 (c.1830); Appendix D. Holograph manuscript of 'Touchandgo' (watermark 1827); Appendix E. Holograph manuscript of 'Touchandgo' (watermark 1828); Appendix F. Holograph fragment of Chapter 16 (c.1830); Appendix G. 'The Fate of a Broom: An Anticipation' (1831, 1837); Note on the text; List of emendations and variants; Ambiguous line-end hyphenations; Explanatory notes; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

'The idiosyncratic joy of Thomas Love Peacock’s works is highlighted within wonderfully readable scholarly introductions from Nicholas A. Joukovsky who edits Nightmare Abbey, and Freya Johnston and Matthew Bevis in their edition of Crotchet Castle. … the first thoroughly edited and annotated imprints of Peacock since the Halliford Edition of the Works, edited between 1924 and 1934 …' John Gardner, Notes and Queries

‘Readers are provided with all the information they need to understand and evaluate both the texts and the purposes underlying them … the editors have interpreted their brief generously. They have done an excellent job in identifying many 'out-of-the-way sources and analogues', as well as in positioning the texts accurately at a particular nineteenth-century cultural moment … this is likely to become the edition of choice for scholars and enthusiasts of Peacock’s novels, and for economists, historians, philosophers and other students of the changing currents of nineteenth-century intellectual culture. The volumes are beautifully produced.’ Pamela Clemit, Times Literary Supplement

‘… the first two volumes of the Cambridge Edition should become the new standard for editors of the Romantic novel. They not only perform the scholarly work of informing the reader of dates, circumstances, and variants, but they do what the best textual editing can: hugely enrich the experience of reading Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle, and consequently enhance our sense of Peacock’s vigour, complexity, and wit.’ William Bowers, Keats-Shelley Journal

‘… [a] meticulous edition …' Thomas Keymer, London Review of Books

‘The Introduction to Crotchet Castle … explores the composition and publication history in great detail, exploiting … surviving draft materials to … the immediacy of Peacock’s response to unfolding events...a remarkable achievement in elucidating Peacock’s ‘fine wit’ for present and future readers.’ Peter Garside, Peacock edition

From the Publisher