Nightmare Abbey: by Thomas Love Peacock

Published in 1818, Peacock's novella Nightmare Abbey is a gentle satire of the then-popular gothic movement in literature. He pokes fun at the genre's obsessions and most of the book's characters are caricatures of well-known personages of the time.Young Scythrop is the only son of Mr. Glowry, living in the semi-ruined Nightmare Abbey on his estate in Lincolnshire. Mr. Glowry, the survivor of a miserable marriage, is addicted to the depressing and the morbid, surrounding himself with servan...