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. . . .

Author Biography

Thomas Love Peacock (1785 - 1866) was an English novelist, poet and official of the East India Company. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels, each with the same basic setting: characters at a table discussing and criticizing the philosophical opinions of the day. In around 1806 Peacock left his job in the city and during the year made a solitary walking tour of Scotland. In 1807 he returned to live at his mother's house at Chertsey. His friends, as he hints, thought it wrong that so clever a man should be earning so little money. In the autumn of 1808 he became private secretary to Sir Home Popham, commanding the fleet before Flushing. By the end of the year he was serving Captain Andrew King aboard HMS Venerable in the Downs. His preconceived affection for the sea did not reconcile him to nautical realities. "Writing poetry," he says, "or doing anything else that is rational, in this floating inferno, is next to a moral impossibility. I would give the world to be at home and devote the winter to the composition of a comedy." He did write prologues and addresses for dramatic performances on board HMS Venerable. His dramatic taste then and for the next nine years resulted in attempts at comedies and lighter pieces. Peacock's own place in literature is pre-eminently that of a satirist. That he has nevertheless been the favorite only of the few is owing partly to the highly intellectual quality of his work, but mainly to his lack of ordinary qualifications of the novelist, all pretension to which he entirely disclaims. He has no plot, little human interest and no consistent delineation of character. His personages are mere puppets or, at best, incarnations of abstract qualities such as grace or beauty, but beautifully depicted.