Mervyn Peake
author profile
born
July 09, 1911
died
November 17, 1968
gender
male
place of birth
Kuling, Jiangxi, China
website
genre
Literature & Fiction
about this author
Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books, though the Titus books would be more accurate: the three works that exist were the beginning of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, following his protagonist Titus Groan from cradle to grave, but Peake's untimely death prevented completion of the cycle, which is now commonly but erroneously referred to as a trilogy. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien, but his surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology.
Peake also ...more
Sign up for Goodreads to pick your favorite quotes and books by Mervyn Peake.
avg rating: 4.00
| 2,654 ratings
| 359 reviews
| 45 distinct works
|
30 fans
More books by Mervyn Peake…
|
The Gormenghast Novels: Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake, Quentin Crisp , Anthony Burgess avg rating 4.09 — 850 ratings — published 1959 9 editions |
my rating: |
|
Titus Groan (Gormenghast Trilogy, 1) by Mervyn Peake avg rating 3.98 — 560 ratings — published 1946 30 editions |
my rating: |
|
Gormenghast (Gormenghast Trilogy, 2) by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.16 — 357 ratings — published 1950 24 editions |
my rating: |
|
Titus Alone (Gormenghast Trilogy, 3) by Mervyn Peake avg rating 3.32 — 249 ratings — published 1959 22 editions |
my rating: |
|
Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake avg rating 3.90 — 58 ratings — published 1953 5 editions |
my rating: |
|
Boy in Darkness and Other Stories by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.23 — 22 ratings — published 2007 |
my rating: |
|
Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.26 — 19 ratings — published 1939 2 editions |
my rating: |
|
A Book of Nonsense by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.16 — 19 ratings — published 1972 5 editions |
my rating: |
|
Letters from a Lost Uncle by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.29 — 17 ratings — published 1948 5 editions |
my rating: |
|
Boy in Darkness by Mervyn Peake avg rating 4.11 — 9 ratings — published 1976 4 editions |
my rating: |
upcoming events
No scheduled events.
"This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow."
— Mervyn Peake (Titus Groan)
— Mervyn Peake (Titus Groan)
tags:
alone
8 people liked it
topics mentioning this author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Next Best Boo...: Free Books from the Public Library | 10 | 93 | Oct 06, 2009 08:15PM |


































