Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. "Headlong Hall" like most of Peacock's novels, it assembles a group of characters Mr Cranium, Miss Poppyseed, Mr Treacle and others who, while eating and drinking to abandon, discuss topics which were then of interest to Peacock and his circle of intellectual friends. Peacock uses the work to parody contemporary thinking in a variety of disparate areas, including utilitarianism, vegetarianism, aesthetics, music, poetry, art criticism, and so on. In the meantime there is dancing and drinking and falling in love.