Other editions of book Headlong Hall

Headlong Hall is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock, his first long work of fiction, written in 1815 and published in 1816.As in his later novel Crotchet Castle, Peacock assembles a group of eccentrics, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humor and social satire from their various interactions and conversations. The setting is the country estate of Squire Harry Headlong Ap-Rhaiader, Esq., in Wales.

Unlike other Welsh squires, the current scion of the ancient and dignified house of Headlong-ap-Headlong, Harry Headlong, Esquire, had actually suffered certain phenomena, called books, to find their way into his house; and, by dint of lounging over them after dinner, became seized with a violent passion to be thought a philosopher and a man of taste. Accordingly, he invited numerous philosophers and poetasters the a feast; and four of the chosen guests had, from different parts of the metropolis, ensconced themselves in the four corners of the Holyhead mail. And a Very Holy Christmas it was to be, indeed…

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Headlong Hall was an instant success upon its anonymous first appearance in 1816. Like most of Peacock's novels, it assembles a group of characters: Mr Cranium, Miss Poppyseed, Mr Treacle and others who, while eating and drinking to abandon, discuss topics which were then of interest to Peacock and his circle of intellectual friends. Some of the figures are thinly-disgused portraits of contemporaries (Mr Escot, for example, is widely thought to be modelled on Shelley); others embody current views of the age, and are held up to scorn. There is a minimum of plot, but much discussion in a unique and lively style, and with burlesque Rabelaisan humour; throughout, Peacock uses the work to parody contemporary thinking in a variety of disparate areas, including utilitarianism, vegetarianism, aesthetics, music, poetry, art criticism, and so on. In the meantime there is dancing and drinking and falling in love.

mould, and covering the whole with an elegant stratum of turf. Squire Headlong caught with avidity at this suggestion; and, as he had always a store of gunpowder in the house, for the accommodation of himself and his shooting visitors, and for the supply of a small battery of cannon, which he kept for his private amusement, he insisted on commencing operations immediately. Accordingly, he bounded back to the house, and very speedily returned, accompanied by the little butler, and half a dozen servants and labourers, with pickaxes and gunpowder, a hanging stove and a poker, together with a basket of cold meat and two or three bottles of Madeira: for the Squire thought, with many others, that a copious supply of provision is a very necessary ingredient in all rural amusements. Mr Milestone superintended the proceedings. The rock was excavated, the powder introduced, the apertures strongly blockaded with fragments of stone: a long train was laid to a spot which Mr Milestone fixed on as sufficiently remote from the possibility of harm: the Squire seized the poker, and, after flourishing it in the air with a degree of dexterity which induced the rest of the party to leave him in solitary possession of an extensive circumference, applied the end of it to the train; and the rapidly communicated ignition ran hissing along the surface of the soil. At this critical moment, Mr Cranium and Mr Panscope appeared at the top of the tower, which, unseeing and unseen, they had ascended on the opposite side to that where the Squire and Mr Milestone were conducting their operations. Their sudden appearance a little dismayed the Squire, who, however, comforted himself with the reflection, that the tower was perfectly safe, or at least was intended to be so, and that his friends were in no probable danger but of a knock on the head from a flying fragment of stone.

"Headlong Hall" is a novella by English novelist Thomas Love Peacock, first published in 1816. Peacock's first serious work of fiction, the plot concerns a group of eccentrics each suffering from monomania and their humorous and satirical conversations while at the country estate of Squire Harry Headlong Ap-Rhaiader, Esq., in Wales, England. A witty and clever tale, "Headlong Hall" it constitutes a must-read for fans of Peacock's wonderful work and would make for a worthy addition to any collection. 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), "Melincourt" (1817), and "Nightmare Abbey" (1818). 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.

The MailThe ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of the road, with as much comfort as may be supposed consistent with the jolting of the vehicle, and an occasional admonition to remember the coachman, thundered through the open door, accompanied by the gentle breath of Boreas, into the ears of the drowsy traveller.A lively remark, that the day was none of the finest, having elicited a repartee of quite the contrary, the various knotty points of meteorology, which usually form the exordium of an English conversation, were successively discussed and exhausted; and, the ice being thus broken, the colloquy rambled to other topics, in the course of which it appeared, to the surprise of every one, that all four, though perfect strangers to each other, were actually bound to the same point, namely, Headlong Hall, the seat of the ancient and honourable family of the Headlongs, of the vale of Llanberris, in Caernarvonshire. This name may appear at first sight not to be truly Cambrian, like those of the Rices, and Prices, and Morgans, and Owens, and Williamses, and Evanses, and Parrys, and Joneses; but, nevertheless, the Headlongs claim to be not less genuine derivatives from the antique branch of Cadwallader than any of the last named multiramified families. They claim, indeed, by one account, superior antiquity to all of them, and even to Cadwallader himself, a tradition having been handed down in Headlong Hall for some few thousand years, that the founder of the family was preserved in the deluge on the summit of Snowdon, and took the name of Rhaiader, which signifies a waterfall, in consequence of his having accompanied the water in its descent or diminution, till he found himself comfortably seated on the rocks of Llanberris. But, in later days, when commercial bagmen began to scour the country, the ambiguity of the sound induced his descendants to drop the suspicious denomination of Riders, and translate the word into English; when, not being well pleased with the sound of the thing, they substituted that of the quality, and accordingly adopted the name Headlong, the appropriate epithet of waterfall.

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The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of the road, with as much comfort as may be supposed consistent with the jolting of the vehicle, and an occasional admonition to remember the coachman, thundered through the open door...

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