Thomas Love Peacock 
Headlong Hall [PDF ebook] 

Think humor writing is solely the province of modern writers? Think again. The early nineteenth-century novel Headlong Hall is a hilarious foray into the world of the British upper class, where well-funded heirs have nothing but time on their hands to pursue increasingly bizarre hobbies and interests. In Headlong Hall, a group of these obsessives is gathered together at the lavish Welsh estate of Squire Harry Headlong Ap-Rhaiader, Esq. and, predictably, things don’t exactly go swimmingly.