Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock

This was not the book I expected it to be. In researching the history of the Gothic novel here and there on the internet, I found this novel mentioned as a satire of the genre, written by a friend of the poet Percy Shelley, the same Shelley who sat around telling ghost stories with his friends and his wife Mary, inspiring her to write Frankenstein. And while this novel does have a mysterious female who is suspected of being a mermaid, a secret room concealed in a tower, and a brief appearance by a supposed ghost, it is more of a satire of the fashionable intellectual trends of the time. And it is quite funny, in a very sly way.

I would not have realized it if I had not read the introduction written by an academic, but this is also a gentle satire of actual people: Scythrop Glowry, the main character, is modeled on Shelley, and the two women he loves are modeled on his first wife Harriet and his second wife Mary. Other subjects of satire include characters patterned after Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron, as well as several lesser-known people of the day.

However, it would not be necessary to know the sources for the characters to appreciate the book. While a knowledge of the trends of the Romantic Movement and of the three poets satirized here would increase enjoyment, a modern reader can recognize people with these types of behavior and thinking today.

The plot here is secondary to the conversations of the residents and guests at Nightmare Abbey. The main plot element is, of course, Scythrop and the two women he loves (at the same time).

The main target of satire is the intellectual nourishing of romantic melancholy, for "...it is the fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius." Mr Flosky, the Coleridge-type character, is portrayed as being "a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman" with a "very fine sense of the grim and tearful." Mr. Cypress, the Byron-type character, says, "I have no hope for myself or for others...." and "How can we be cheerful in the midst of disappointment and despair?" Peacock ever-so-subtly exaggerates (or maybe not) his characters' dramatic personas and conversations to reveal them to be pretentious and ridiculous.

For obvious humor value, we have the amusing names of the characters, for instance Mr. Listless, who is...well, listless; Mr. Toobad, who sees everything as the work the the devil; Mr. Larynx, who is the preacher; the servants Raven, Crow, and Graves. More subtle humor pervades the whole narrative, with ironic and deadpan little asides. The most humorous incident comes when the company is discussing ghosts, and Mr. Flosky dramatically proclaims, "I see a ghost at this moment." When the door opens and a ghastly figure walks in, the reaction of the characters is laugh-out-loud funny.

I liked this novel very much, both for its historical interests and for its humor. It is still funny today. It seems that some young people still consider it to be fashionably romantic and interesting to be dark and brooding. The Byronic hero is alive and flourishing in the 21st Century.