'Peacock is one of our greatest creators of the fantastic. And here was the fantastic created for him by God.' So the essayist refers to the Memoirs of Shelley which appeared in Fraser's Magazine, and earlier he reminds us that Peacock's Four Ages of Poetry 'provoked the writing of Shelley's famous Defence'. Shelley was his friend, Meredith, his son-in-law, and Coleridge his butt in the satires which have made him immortal as the critic of romanticism, and a very typical English bureaucrat of the old school before the days of competitive examinations which he attacked so vigorously in Gryll Grange. Peacock has for us an agreeable period favour, and occasionally his period serves the present time: 'I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the human race.'

The essayist is the author of the 20th-century volume of the Oxford History of English Literature soon to be published, and of the essay on James Joyce in this series. He is a Student of Christ Church, and enjoys a separate reputation as Michael Innes, the writer of detective fiction.