Gryll Grange

By Thomas Love Peacock

Presented by Voices of Today.

Narration by Graham Scott

Also featuring the voices of Alan Weyman, Denis Daly, and Rachel May.

Text prepared by Denis Daly and Alan Weyman.

Music for songs composed and arranged by Alan Weyman.

Audio edited by Denis Daly and Alan Weyman.

Gryll Grange was Thomas Love Peacock's seventh and last novel and was written after the author's retirement from the India Office in 1856.

The plot, such as it is,  follows the usual pattern of most of Peacock's earlier novels.  

A group of highly opinionated individuals gather at a remote country estate in Hampshire and indulge in lengthy conversations about issues of the day over extravagant dinners. The young and idealistic Algernon Falconer resides in the opulent country house with seven young "handmaidens',  whom he calls "Vestals."  A learned and garrulous local clergyman, Dr. Opimian, becomes a friend and confidant of Mr. Falconer and decides that the young man would make a suitable husband for Morgana Gryll, a niece of one of his friends. 

However, Lord Curryfin, an amateur lecturer, falls in love with Morgana and continues to pay her attention until he suddenly transfers them to another young lady, a Miss Niphet. Mr. Harry Hedgerow, a local rustic, falls in love with one of the Vestals and provides companions who do the same with the rest of them. Algernon Falconer, being now completely free, overcomes his initial lack of resolution, and is finally betrothed to the youthful heiress who had been originally chosen for him. The other eight suitors are also accepted, and the nuptials of all nine couples are all performed in a single ceremony by the learned clergyman, who has done much to bring all the parties together, and whose final peroration brings the book to a close.