Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art [Hardcover]

With a career encompassing 25 years that included five novels, a handful of plays and thousands of drawings, paintings and sketches, why isn't Mervyn Peake a more celebrated English literary and artistic hero? A cult figure today, Peake is best known for Gormenghast, his bleak but compelling gothic fantasy trilogy published in the 1940s and '50s about the hierarchy of a fictional castle, Gormenghast, and the Machiavellian machinations of its inhabitants. But he was also an accomplished illustrator, painter and war artist. It is precisely this failure to acknowledge Peake's breadth of talent that Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art, a new and comprehensive guide to his career, seeks to redress. Though Peake's talent is indisputable, the source of his marvelously twisted imagination is elusive. He enjoyed great critical acclaim as an artist during his career. He was commissioned by the Queen Mother to do illustrations for her grandson Prince Charles' nursery in the 1950s but he was largely ignored by the literary observers of the time. Kingsley Amis once called Peake "a bad fantasy writer of maverick status." This book shows just how wrong Amis and his cohorts were. The heavily illustrated tome punctuates examples of Peake's art and excerpts of his writing with purely biographical chapters. Cartoonist Chris Riddell of the Observer Sunday newspaper, Lord of the Rings illustrator John Howe, and others who have been influenced by Peake contribute a range of essays and analysis as well. Fantasy and science fiction author Michael Moorcock, who contributes an introduction to the book, says: "Peake is in the great tradition of idiosyncratic English writers. His poetry and fiction, like theirs is sui generis and, like his drawing and painting, reveals authentic genius." Comic-book writer Alan ( Watchmen, Lost Girls) Moore calls Peake "probably one of the finest writers in the English language," but says literary snobbery that considers fantasy a lesser art form has contributed --Time Magazine

I was looking for something else on the library shelf and suddenly our eyes met from across an empty aisle. The I was clutching in my arms the most wonderful book in the world 'Mervyn Peake: The Man and his Art'. The text is fascinating. I didn't know Peake was born to missionary parents in China. He was sent to a British concession grammar school, then home to England. Decades later he produced his wonderful illustrations for Stevenson's novel - you really owe it to yourself to get your hands on this one. Here's a detail: Peake plus 'Treasure Island' adds up to one of MY favourite books. --The Valve - A literary Organ