Headlong Hall

First edition title page

Headlong Hall is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock, his first long work of fiction, written in 1815 and published in 1816.^[1]

As in his later novel Crotchet Castle, Peacock assembles a group of eccentrics, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humor and social satire from their various interactions and conversations. The setting is the country estate of Squire Harry Headlong Ap-Rhaiader, Esq., in Wales.

As part of Mr. Cranium the phrenologist's announcement of his lecture, the author coins the words osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary. They refer to the structure of the human body; they are adjectives compounded by stringing together classical terms that describe the body, using ancient Greek terms for the first word and Latin for the second.

References

1. "Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)". Encyclopædia Britannica 21. 1911. p. 22.

External links

• Text of Headlong Hall, at the T. L. Peacock Society
• Headlong Hall public domain audiobook at LibriVox