Peacock was natural inside Dorset, England. He was the close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced both more's function. He wrote satiric novels, apiece by using a equivalent basic setting — characters at a table discussing & criticizing the philosophic opinions of the day.

He worked for the British East India Company.

Early life

Thomas Love Peacock was innate at Weymouth, October 18, 1785. His father was the glass merchandiser around London, partner of the Mr Pellatt, presumptively founder of the celebrated business firm; his mother was the girl of Thomas Love, at one time master of a man-of-war. Of a father i personally underst& nothing however his calling, and that he left his boy an orphan at the age of terzetto. Mrs Peacock attend swallow her father at Chertsey, & from either eight to thirteen Peacock was at the school at Englefield Green.

Peacock's puerile compositions, occasionally of which develop been privately printed by Sir Henry Cole, exhibit just the kindthe formal precociousness which a schoolmaster would appreciate, when displaying nothing of the peculiar fancy & humour which use given him his abiding place inside literature. Extra interesting occurs as select contribution to "The Juvenile Library", a magazine for youth whose competitions excited the emulation of many more boys destined to celebrity, among the two Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, and W. J. Coyote. Peacock, within 1800, gained a eleventh prize for an essay on the comparative benefits of history & life history when themes of learn.

At a age of xvi Peacock moved to London, & there exists grounds to believe inside his papers of his getting for a instance followed occasionally mercantile occupation, the accurate nature and severity of which is unknown. He began camping a Reading Room of the British Museum, which he frequented for many years, the persevering student of the better literature around Greek, Latin, French, & Italian. His circumstances, though narrow, must own been independent, for inside 1804 & 1806 he published ii volumes of poetry, A Monks of St. Mark & Palmyra palm, from either which profits may hardly keep close at hand been potential.

His friends, when he hints, thought it wrong that thus clever the human should become earning thus little money. In the fall of 1808 he became personal secretary to Sir Home Popham, commanding the fleet prior to Flushing. His preconceived fondness for the sea did non reconcile him to maritime 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 & addresses for striking performances around board a Venerable: his dramatic taste so & for nine years after discovered expression in tries at comedies & pieces of a however lightly class, 100% of which fail from either want of ease of dialogue & the all over-elaboration of incident & humour. He left a Venerable within March 1809. An additional of his yearn verse form, "The Genius of the Thames", which he experienced meditated withinside 1807, was published in 1810.

Friendship with Shelley

Inside 1812 Peacock published an additional elaborate verse form, "The Philosophy of Melancholy", & in a equivalent season manufactured the acquaintance of Shelley: he says in his memoir of Shelley, that he "saw Shelley for the first time just before he went to Tanyrallt", whither Shelley proceeded from either London around November 1812 (Hogg's Life of Shelley, vol. Two, pp. 174, 175.) A medium of introduction was there are no doubt Mr Thomas Hookham, a publisher of 100% Peacock's early writings, whose circulating library ministered to Shelley's noetic hunger for several years. He experienced sent "The Genius of the Thames" to Shelley, & in the "Shelley Memorials", pp. 38-40, is encountered a letter from either a poet under date of August 18, 1812, extolling the poetic merits of the performance & sustaining equal exaggeration censuring what he thought andy skinner's misguided nationalism. Portable acquaintance nearly necessarily ensued, & hence arose an intimacy non devoid of influence upon Shelley's fortunes each prior to & when his dying.

For occasionally years, a course of Peacock's life is sole known from either its connection by owning his illustrious friend. In a wintertime of 1813 he accompanies Shelley & Harriet to Edinburgh; throughout the wintertime of 1814-15 he is an all but every day visitant of Shelley & Mary at their London lodgings. Within 1815 he shares their voyage to the source of the Thames. "He seems," writes Charles Clairmont, the member of the person, "an idly-inclined man; indeed, he is professedly so in the summer; he owns he cannot apply himself to study, and thinks it more beneficial to him as a human being entirely to devote himself to the beauties of the season while they last; he was only happy while out from morning till night". In a period of the winterperiod of 1815-16 Peacock was high-pressure walking ended from either Marlow, in which he got established himself a select few time in that month, to visit Shelley at Bishopgate. There he met Hogg, & "the winter was a mere Atticism. Our studies were exclusively Greek". the advantage which Shelley from either such a course of learn just can not exist as overrated. Its influence is seen extra & further inside all about he wrote to the prevent of his life. the morbid, a todays, a polemical, fade bit by bit away from his mind; & a writer world health organization got begun when a imitator of a wildest extravagances of German romance would, got non his genius transcassibilate the restricts of any school, develop ended when scarcely less of a Hellene than Keats and Landor.

Inside 1815 Headlong Hall was written, & it was published in the as a consequence season. Using this book Peacock definitively requires a place within literature which he was to maintain throughout his life, forgoing real alteration or even development beyond a mellowing which wider personal experience & increasing prosperity would naturally bring.

Inside 1816 Shelley went overseas, & Peacock appears to develop been entrusted by using the commission of providing a Shelleys by using a fresh home. He fixed the babies touching his have abode at Swell Marlow. Melincourt was published at this instance; & Nightmare Abbey & "Rhododaphne" written. Prior to these works were published around 1818, Shelley was once more in flight, & Peacock & he were never to meet over again.

East India Company

In January 13, 1819, he writes from either Five York Street, Covent Garden: "I now pass every morning at the India House, from half-past 10 to half-past 4, studying Indian affairs. My object is not yet attained, though I have little doubt but that it will be. It was not in the first instance of my own seeking, but was proposed to me. It will lead to a very sufficing provision for me in two or three years. It is not in the common routine of office, but is an employment of a very interesting and intellectual kind, connected with finance and legislation, in which it is possible to be of great service, not only to the Company, but to the millions under their dominion."

It would come out that a East India Company got become caring that their at home staff was as well only clerical, & had determined to reinforce it per appointment of quatern men of exceptional ability to the Examiner's professional, including Peacock & James Mill.

Mill's wage is said to use been £800 a year; you don't understand whether Peacock received as much. A latter's appointment is said by Sir Henry Cole to keep close at hand been owing to a influence of Peter Auber, the Company's secretary & historiographer, whom he got known at school, though probably non as a school-class fellow. Mill appears to own undergone there are no probation: Peacock did, however a line 2 text papers which he drafted were returned to him by using a high commendation, "Nothing superfluous, and nothing wanting".

You view from either Hogg that it get on July One, 1819 that Peacock slept first within "a house in Stamford Street (No 18) which, as you might expect from a Republican, he has furnished very handsomely".

Inside 1822 Maid Marian, begun inside 1818, was completed & published. It was before long dramatised by using awesome profits by Planché, and enjoyed the honour of translation into French and German. Peacock's earnings was today £Yard a year, & inside 1823 he acquired a home at Lower Halliford which continued his predilection to the prevent of his life. Inside 1829 come A Misfortunes of Elphin, & around 1831 Crotchet Castle, a virtually everthing matured & thoroughly characteristic of all his works.

Witharound 1836 his official career wwhen crowned by his appointment as Chief Examiner of Indian Correspondence, in succession to James Mill. A post was 1 which may simply exist as filled by individual of healthy business capacity & exceptional ability within drafting instrument: & Peacock's discharge of its duties, these are believed, suffered nothing in comparison either by owning his distinguished predecessor even or his however other celebrated successor, Stuart Mill.

These are good deal to exist as regretted that and then little is known of the old India Home, or even of its eminent occupier in their official capacity. It doesn't seem to keep around afforded an employment of predilection to any of the babies. Peacock has let around the little weak in another counsel:—

Peacock's occupation seems to use at times in the main eff finance, commerce, & public works. the number one clear glimpse you obtain of its nature and severity is a memoranda prepared by him at the asking of a Director respecting General Chesney's projected Euphrates expedition, & reprinted in the foreword to the General's narration as a tribute to its sagacity. A line of inquiry one of these days resulted in a construction under his supervising of cast-iron steamboats designed to demonstrate his learn from of the feasibleness of steam navigation spherical the Cape.

Later life

For several years when his appointment Peacock's authorship was within suspension using a exception of the operatic criticisms which he regularly contributed to the "Examiner", and an occasional article in the Westminster Review or ''Bentley's Miscellany.

Within 1837, Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey, Maid Marian, & Crotchet Castle'' appeared together when vol. 57 of Bentley's Standard Novels. All about 1852, taste or even leisure for authorship returned, & he commenced the series of contributions to Fraser's Magazine with the first, and most interesting, paper of his Horae Dramaticae, a delightful restoration of the "Querolus", a Roman comedy probably of the time of Diocletian.

Peacock got in a meantime retired from either the India Home in an ample pension (March 29, 1856). Throughout 1860 his survive novel, Gryll Grange, continued to pop up within Fraser's Magazine.

Peacock died at Lower Halliford, January 23, 1866, & is buried in the freshly burying ground at Shepperton. His grand-daughter remembered him around these words:—

Works

Peacock's have place around literature is pre-pre-eminently that of the ridiculer. That he has notwithstanding been merely the favorite of the couple is owing inside a measure to the extremely noetic quality of his operate, however mainly to his lack of the average qualifications of the novelist, tons pretension to which he completely disclaims. He has there is there is no plot, little individual interest, & no uniform delineation of character. His personages come mere puppets, or even even even, at the best, incarnations of abstract qualities, or idealisations of unbodied grace or beauty.

It might non become a judgment of any capable of appreciating a Aristophanic comedy of which, restricted as their shell is compared to, Peacock's fiction is, maybe, a better modern representative. About all about that may be urged against him may be urged against Aristophanes as well; & save that his invention is far less daring & gilded, his Muse may allege virtually all of "the apologies of Aristophanes". Whenever he is depreciated, comparison by having a second novelist unremarkably seems to exist when implied, however it would exist as as unfair to line 3 text him per standard of Miss Austen or Miss Edgeworth, as to attempt Aristophanes per system of the New Comedy.

An expert of fiction he is non, & he never claimed to exist as; the ironist, the humorist, the poet he is virtually all without doubt. the literary historiographer would keep around to note around him a number 1 appearance of a recently nature & severity, destined to become oftentimes imitated, however rarely approached, and never exactly reproduced.

Novels
Headlong Hall (published 1815 however dated 1816) [lightly revised, 1837] Melincourt (1817) Nightmare Abbey (1818) [lightly revised, 1837] Maid Marian (1822) A Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) Crotchet Castle (1831) [lightly revised, 1837] Gryll Grange (1861) [serialised first in 1860]

Verse
A Monks of St. Mark (1804?) Borassus flabellifer & more Verse form (1805) the Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Verse form (1810) A Genius of the Thames Lontar & more Verse form (1812) A Philosophy of Melancholy (1812) Sir Hornbook, or even Childe Launcelot's Expedition (1813) Sir Proteus: the Satiric Ballad (1814) A Around Table, or even King Arthur's Feast (1817) Rhododaphne: or even a Thessalian Spirit (1818) Paper Money Lyrics (1837)

Essays
A 4 Ages of Poetry (1820) Recollections of Childhood: A Abbey Home (1837) Memoirs of Shelley (1858-60) A Endure Day of Windsor Woods (1887) [composed 1862] Prospectus: Authoritative Education

Plays
A 3 Doctors A Dilettanti Gl'Ingannati, or even A Deceived (translated from either a Italian, 1862)

Unfinished tales and novels
Satyrane (c. 1816) Calidore (c. 1816) A Pilgrim of Provence (c. 1826) A Lord of the Hills (c. 1835) Julia Procula (c. 1850) The Story Opening at Chertsey (c. 1850) a Story of the Mansion among the Chiltern Hills (c. 1859) Boozabowt Abbey (c. 1859) Cotswald Chace (c. 1860)