Nightmare Abbey Annotated

Nightmare Abbey is an 1818 novella by Thomas Love Peacock, and his third long work of fiction to be published. It was written in late March and June 1818, and published in London in November of the same year by T. Hookham Jr of Old Bond Street and Baldwin, Craddock & Joy of Paternoster Row. The novella was lightly revised by the author in 1837 for republication in Volume 57 of Bentley's Standard Novels. 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.