Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art - shortlisted for the 2007 Locus Art Book Award by Sebastian Peake |
![Gormenghast [DVD] [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BNFMJ1EDL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Celia Imrie
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by Sebastian Peake
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by Mervyn Peake
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by Mervyn Peake
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Reading this biography of Mervyn Peake one is left with undiluted admiration for his seemingly boundless creativity. Best known for his Gormenghast trilogy, which has now been introduced to a wider audience with the BBC's all-star television adaptation, Peake made his name as a painter first, one of the outstanding talents of his generation, and was also prodigious in his output in other media, notably his poetry and wonderfully interpreted illustrations of classics such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
G Peter Winnington, who has previously edited the Mervyn Peake Review and Peake Studies together with revised editions of the Gormenghast trilogy, is both a sympathetic and astute guide to the life and works of a remarkable talent. His considered appreciation offers much intriguing insight into the imagination of the man and the creative processes that brought forth such extraordinary creations, particularly Titus Groan, the first of the Gormenghast books. Peake comes across as a wonderful man--vivacious, considerate and humorous--as the book recounts his life from a childhood in China as the son of a missionary, through the development of his own distinctly idiosyncratic style on the Channel island of Sark to his years of marriage and fatherhood in London. In later life a degenerative illness prevented him from working and led eventually to a premature death, though the book doesn't dwell too long on this more tragic element which has been the focus of some previous accounts.
This will be a fascinating read for fans of Peake's work and particularly for those who are interested in the act of artistic creation, but one feels that there may yet be a book to come that will more completely capture Peake's life and character, if, as seems likely, his reputation continues to grow. In part this is owing to the fact that Winnington has not been afforded permission to use all the material he would have liked to, but more noticeably, there are loose ends which leave the man shrouded in mystery, most notably when we are told, without any further comment, that there is little doubt he had at least one extramarital affair. Still, this is a fluent and highly readable book that is sure to enhance Peake's standing as one of the jewels of 20th-century British culture. --Alisdair Bowles
Joe Sanders in Science Fiction Studies #85 (Nov.2001)
Written with respect for its subject, Vast Alchemies is now the essential source for factual information about Peake's life.
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62% buy the item featured on this page: Vast Alchemies: The Life and Work of Mervyn Peake |
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19% buy Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art - shortlisted for the 2007 Locus Art Book Award £14.48 |
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10% buy Boy In Darkness and other stories £6.49 |
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5% buy Mervyn Peake: Two Lives £6.98 |
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