Close Readings: 'Crotchet Castle' by Thomas Love Peacock

The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books

Society & Culture

4.4 • 581 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Thomas Love Peacock didn’t want to write novels, at least not in the form they had taken in the first half of the 19th century. In Crotchet Castle he rejects the expectation that novelists should reveal the interiority of their characters, instead favouring the testing of opinions and ideas. His ‘novel of talk’, published in 1831, appears largely like a playscript in which disparate characters assemble for a house party next to the Thames before heading up the river to Wales. Their debates cover, among other things, the Captain Swing riots of 1830, the mass dissemination of knowledge, the emerging philosophy of utilitarianism and the relative merits of medieval and contemporary values. In this extended extract from 'Novel Approaches', a Close Readings series from the LRB, Clare Bucknell is joined by Freya Johnston and Thomas Keymer to discuss where the book came from and its use of ‘sociable argument’ to offer up-to-date commentary on the economic and political turmoil of its time. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Sponsored links: Use the code ‘LRB’ to get £150 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb See A Knock on the Roof at the Royal Court Theatre: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/a-knock-on-the-roof/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of the LRB podcast is sponsored by Serious Readers, whose high-definition reading
0:05.8	lights allow you to read in comfort for longer during the dark evenings. Words really stand
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0:23.2	in the UK by going to Seriousreaders.com forward slash LRB, and there's a 30-day risk-free trial.
0:31.9	That web address again, Seriousreaders.com forward slash LRB or enter the code LRB at checkout to make reading enjoyable again
0:41.3	without straining your eyes.
0:43.8	Hello and welcome to the second episode of novel approaches, a close reading series for the London
0:49.7	Review of Books. I'm Claire Bucknell, I'm a fellow of all souls and a writer for the paper,
0:55.0	and I'll be co-hosting this series separately with Thomas Jones, who will be your host next time.
1:00.6	And the novel we'll be reading this episode is Cropchick Castle by the English novelist,
1:06.2	satirist and critic Thomas Love Peacock, and it was published in 1831.
1:11.9	And to talk about it, I'm delighted to be joined by two contributors to the LRB,
1:16.9	Freya Johnston, who teaches English at Oxford, and who has actually edited Peacock's novels,
1:22.9	so very much in charge today.
1:25.8	And Tom Keema, who teaches English at Toronto, who wrote about
1:33.1	Peacock in the LRLB a few years ago, and you can find that in the archive online.
1:38.1	Fray and Tom, welcome to novel approaches. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you.
1:42.2	Thank you. Thanks, Claire.
1:43.6	We're going to start
1:44.6	by orienting ourselves in Peacock's world and his literary context, and then we'll dive into the novel.
1:51.9	Spoilers are plenty and its eccentric cast of characters. And the very loose theme of our series is money
	...

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