The short, satirical novels of Thomas Love Peacock are unlike any other genre. They are often recognized as "novels", but they also have characteristics of drama or colloquia. They do not have a plot, but consist of pleasant and often humorous conversations. In these short novels, Peacock satirized his contemporaries and issues of his day. Despite the fact that most of the satire is lost on the average twenty-first century reader, they are still very readable, and might even provoke an occasional smile, but from what I understand they may have provoked bulderous laughter in their own day.

Nightmare Abbey (1818) is the most famous of Peacock's short novels. Thomas Love Peacock was a contemporary and friend of most of the Romantic poets and their circle. In Nightmare Abbey some of these poets appear in disguise, Percy Bysshe Shelley as “Scythrop Glowry,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “Mr Ferdinando Flosky” and, Lord Byron in as “Mr Cypress” but I must admit that I did not recognize them as such. According to the introduction, Shelley is reported to have said that his house was instantly recognisable in the story, but I suppose it would require a great deal of biographical information to see through that. In fact, Raymond Wright writes that (at least in 1986, i.e. when the introduction was written) many of the side characters in Peacock's novels had not yet been identified.

However, as I said before, all that literary criticism can be left for what it is, and these short novels can be enjoyed in their own right, with an occasional chuckle. ( )

Classics of the novel of dialogue, precursors to early Aldous Huxley, and fine, fun romps in their own right. ( )