Gormenghast Books
Dreamlike and macabre, Mervyn Peake’s extraordinary novel Titus Groan —first in the Gormenghast Trilogy—is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern fiction. As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Meanwhile, far away and in the kitchen, a servant named Steerpike escapes his drudgework and begins an auspicious ascent to power. Inside of Gormenghast, all events are predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time—and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. Introduction by Anthony Burgess Praise for the Gormenghast Trilogy: “There is nothing in literature like Mervyn Peake’s remarkable Gormenghast novels . . . They were crafted by a master, who was also an artist, and they take us to an ancient castle as big as a city, with heroes and villains and people larger than life that are impossible to forget.” —Neil Gaiman “[Peake’s books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience.” —C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia “His inventiveness, his ingenuity, and his humor are astonishing.” — San Francisco Chronicle
Enter the world of Gormenghast...the vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. Gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old rituals, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder.Gormenghast is more than a sequel to Titus Groan - it is an enrichment and deepening of that book.The fertility of incident, character and rich atmosphere combine in a tour de force that ranks as one of the twentieth century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.
“A startling and unusual creation by an author who had imagination to burn and burn again. A feat of storytelling unmatched in wit or imagination.” —SFF180 As the novel opens, Titus, lord of Castle Gormenghast, has abdicated his throne. Born and brought to the edge of manhood in the huge, rotting castle, Titus rebels against the age-old ritual of which he is both lord and prisoner and rushes headlong into the world. From that moment forward, he is thrust into a stormy land of a dark imagination, where figures and landscapes loom up with the force and vividness of a dream—or a nightmare. This final installment in the Gormenghast Trilogy is a fantastic triumph—a conquest awash in imagination, terror, and charm. Introduction by David Louis Edelman Praise for the Gormenghast Trilogy: “There is nothing in literature like Mervyn Peake’s remarkable Gormenghast novels . . . They were crafted by a master, who was also an artist, and they take us to an ancient castle as big as a city, with heroes and villains and people larger than life that are impossible to forget.” —Neil Gaiman “[Peake’s books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience.” —C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia “His inventiveness, his ingenuity, and his humor are astonishing.” — San Francisco Chronicle
Maeve Gilmore, Mervyn Peake's widow, wrote Titus Awakes based on those pages left behind by Peake. Titus Awakes picks up the story of Titus, 77th Earl of Groan, as he wanders through the modern world. Fans of the Gormenghast novels will relish this continuation of the world Peake created and of the lives of unforgettable characters from the original novels, including the scheming Steerpike, Titus's sister Fuchsia, and the long-serving Dr. Prunesquallor. Published a century after Peake's birth, this strikingly imaginative novel provides a moving coda to Peake's masterwork.