'Nightmare Abbey excels in tracking the composition through Spring 1818 … A variety of sources, including anecdotal evidence, are similarly used to recreate the immediate critical response … offering valuable commentary on prototypes of the novel's satiric figures, generic and personal … In a final section on 'Afterlife', the editor convincingly attributes a shift in fortunes in the popularity of this title to the growth of English literature as an academic subject … a remarkable achievement in elucidating Peacock's 'fine wit' for present and future readers.' Peter Garside, Peacock edition
General editor's preface; Chronology; Introduction; Nightmare Abbey; Appendix A. Peacock's Preface of 1837; Appendix B. An Essay on Fashionable Literature (1818); Appendix C. The Four Ages of Poetry (1820); Note on the text; List of emendations and variants; Ambiguous line-end hyphenations; Explanatory notes; Bibliography.