Headlong Hall

fiction by Thomas Love Peacock

Blurb

Headlong Hall is the first novel by Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1815 and published in 1816.
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.

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