Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) was an English novelist and poet, a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and, for most of his working life, an official of the East India Company. He is best known for his conversational satirical novels, among them Headlong Hall (1816), Nightmare Abbey (1818) and The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829).

His verse is mostly scattered through those novels as songs. "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr", sung by the Welsh warriors of The Misfortunes of Elphin, is the most often reprinted; the editor of this anthology also prints two Welsh-legend ballads, "The Cauldron of Ceridwen" and "Llyn-y-Dreiddiad-Vrawd".