- Paperback: 1168 pages
- Publisher: Overlook Press; Reprint edition (Nov 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0879516283
- ISBN-13: 978-0879516284
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.9 x 5.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 253,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and a dazzling array of bizarre creatures inhabit the magical world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom, unless the conniving Steerpike, who is determined to rise above his menial position and control the House of Groan, has his way.
In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream--lush, fantastical, and vivid. Accompanying the text are Peake's own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange and marvelous creatures that inhabit Gormenghast.
Introductory Essays by Anthony Burgess and Quentin Crisp
Twelve critical essays
Fragment of the unpublished novel, Titus Awakes
"Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It is a very, very great work . . . a classic of our age."-- Robertson Davies
"[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
"This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time."-- The Washington Post Book World
In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream--lush, fantastical, and vivid. Accompanying the text are Peake's own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange and marvelous creatures that inhabit Gormenghast.
Introductory Essays by Anthony Burgess and Quentin Crisp
Twelve critical essays
Fragment of the unpublished novel, Titus Awakes
"Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It is a very, very great work . . . a classic of our age."-- Robertson Davies
"[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
"This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time."-- The Washington Post Book World
About the Author
Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) was a playwright, painter, poet, illustrator, short story writer, and designer of theatrical costumes, as well as a novelist. Among his many books are Mr. Pye and Peake's Progress.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An epic work of profound tragedy and astonishing beauty.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gormenghast Novels: Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus Alone (Paperback)
I first read The Gormenghast Trilogy ("Titus Groan", "Gormenghast" and "Titus Alone") nearly 20 years ago as a teenager, after it was recommended to me by a friend. Having tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the posthumous Tolkein novel "The Silmarillion", I had almost given up on the fantasy genre. Thank God for Mervyn Peake. As I fell deeper and deeper into the trilogy it became my favorite work of literature, and a far, far supierior work to "Lord of the Rings". I have since read it 3 or 4 times and have not changed my mind. The first novel, Titus Groan, introduces the reader to a world that is at once mesmerizing and horrible. Very few of the characters are even remotely likable, but the reader is drawn to them nonetheless. It is Peake's triumph, then, to bring the reader to tears when these characters eventually meet their inevitable fates (all save the villainous Steerpike). The burning of the Library and it's consequences in "Titus Groan"is as violent as a rape. Titus' loss of the Thing in "Gormenghast" is more tragic than "Romeo and Juliet", "Othello" and "Oedipus" put together. Even the Countess commands total respect by the end of the second novel. The unspeakable blasphemy committed by young Titus leading into "Titus Alone" leaves us hollow with the loss of the monstrous castle, but it takes Titus into a world so far removed from his own that we hardly have time to notice. This is the story of Titus as an adult, in exile from all he has ever known, trying to come to terms with his irreversible actions. He enters a world that has more malevolence than Steerpike ever dreamed of, but also more real emotion, a first for Titus. His final (near) return to his birthplace triumphantly puts him on a new path, much the same way Britain and the world changed direction forever following World War II, and the way English literature changed forever following the publication of The Gormenghast Trilogy. It is one the finest peice of fiction ever written, and worthy of much more popular exposure than it has received in the 50 years since it was first published. I am proud to own a boxed (!) set of the Penguin paperback editions, complete with all of Peake's original illustrations.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Virtuosic Achievement; A Triumph of Imagination,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gormenghast Novels: Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus Alone (Paperback)
Why is this book not given the recognition it deserves? Those who have read it cannot fail to be impressed by its power; Anthony Burgess hailed it as one of the best books of the century, and deservedly so. Peake has a virtuosic imagination. He is one of those few, remarkable writers who write with such sensual clarity that the reader reads 'through' the words on the page into an eidetic experience of the depicted world: that phenomenon uniquely capable in great literature in which writing is magically transparent to experience. He is arguably the best descriptive writer in literature, which makes his achievement all the more remarkable for being a work of pure imagination. For instance, to arbitrarily pick one example out of a book in which every scene is so imagined, the battle between Flay and Swelter in the spiderweb filled attic is a masterpiece of an imaginatively observed reality, rendered with such intense immediacy that one is there, observing every step, every parry, every iota of anxiety and tension moment to moment. And all in grand and beautiful language. (Truly gorgeous language. It may sound ridiculous, but I don't think I exaggerate when I say Peake's use of language is to 20th century english what Gibbon's was to the 18th: grand, sublime, precise, graceful, hypnotic, in love with words and language.) And though his characters are largely grotesques, he writes of them with such sympathy and with such spot-on characterization that he makes them credible living breathing entities. But his skill is not limited to description or characterization. He is able to capture complex and subtle relationships with surgical precision. To arbitrarily pick another example, the courtship scene between Bellgrove and Irma must rank as one of the most brilliantly comical set pieces in literature due to its farcical accuracy. To classify this work as fantasy is a disservice to his achievement. 'The Gormeghast Trilogy' transcends genre just as 'Moby Dick' transcends a fishing tale. Because while Peake's remarkable technical prowess alone should guarantee his place in the pantheon of great 20th century writers, it's his profound, and profoundly subtle, exploration of the motives behind--and effects of--power, complacency, ritual, and decay that puts him squarely in the center of the 20th century. If authors are the products of their history, then the Gormenghast trilogy provides an existential snapshot of the postwar years as only a handful of other works do (eg, Catch-22). The first book, as another reviewer here said, is like the appetizer for the second. The second book is the heart of the trilogy. The third book, as has also been remarked here, is the weakest. It is a great loss to literature that Peake lost his powers so early to illness in what should've been a long career. There are few books that can provide such ample rewards to the receptive reader. Once one enters Peake's world they never forget it. Though it is currently one of the unknown great works in world literature, I hope it will one day find its rightful place in the catalogue of literary masterpieces. It is a unique book, a triumph of imagination. Often a work of fiction is called 'an experience'; 'The Gormeghast Trilogy' is one of the few works in which such an ascription is not perjorative.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard work but highly rewarding.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gormenghast Novels: Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus Alone (Paperback)
"Swelter collapsed in a cataclysmic mass of wine drenched blubber". Just one example of the lyrical language used by Peake.This novel is dark: very dark. The characters are trapped in the habbit of ritual. However, when Steerpike escapes from Swelter's grasp, and slides his way into the trust of the master of rituals, the world slowly starts to dissolve... I loved the book. If you try it, keep going. It is worth it.
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