A Thomas Love Peacock Miscellany

Thomas Love Peacock is today remembered as the author of seven satirical novels which many regard merely as literary curiosities. However, he was also a man of considerable learning, a skilled poet, and an astute literary critic. Recollections of Thomas Love Peacock is an affectionate reminiscence by Sir Edward Strachey who had become familiar with Peacock during the latter's period of service at the India House. Some Recollections of Childhood provides a window into Peacock's early youth and displays his keen powers of observation and his fascination with the world of nature. While Peacock's early years were not particularly easy, the memoir is completely free of any tinge of bitterness or regret. In "Four Ages of Poetry", Peacock pokes gentle fun at his great contemporaries Wordsworth, Southey, and Shelley while providing a thought-provoking analysis of the birth, growth, and decay of poetry. "The Last Day of Windsor Forest" is an old man's recollection of a memorable episode in the