Nightmare Abbey is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock, first published in 1818, widely considered to be Peacock?s most enduringly popular work. The narrative centres on Christopher Glowry, a miserly widower, his son Scythrop and a host of dismal-sounding servants in his family pile, Nightmare Abbey. Recovering from an ill-fated love affair, Scythrop dreams up various schemes to reform and regenerate the human species, but misanthropy lurks around every corner, and everything changes when a mermaid is spotted and a strange woman appears in his chamber.

Although fundamentally a Gothic novel, and rich in allusion ? from Pope to Dante, Rossini to Mozart ? Nightmare Abbey is, at heart, a satire, as Peacock makes clear in the preface to a later edition, in which he describes the characters ? allusions to his friends ? as ?status-quo-ites?, ?morbid visionaries?, ?romantic enthusiasts? and ?lovers of good dinners?.

'Every quarter century, like clockwork, there is a Peacock revival.' ? Gore Vidal

'Great mental powers on display in such lightly told tales.' ? Christopher Hawtree, The Guardian