Gormenghast

by Mervyn Peake, Quentin Crisp (Afterword)

Overview

"The true fantasy classic of our time." —Washington Post Book World

For generations of fantasy fans, this masterpiece ranks as one of the 20th century’s most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.

A young earl’s future in a sprawling castle could be changed by a feral girl and a cunning servant in this acclaimed gothic fantasy trilogy’s second entry.

Titus Groan is seven years old, lord and heir to the crumbling castle Gormenghast. A 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, and death.

Steerpike, who began his climb across the roofs when Titus was born, is now ascending the spiral staircase to the heart of the castle, and in his wake lie imprisonment, manipulation, and murder . . .

Gormenghast is the second volume in Mervyn Peake's acclaimed Gormenghast trilogy, but it's much more than a sequel to Titus Groan—it's an enrichment and deepening of that book.

Introduction by Tad Williams
Afterword by Quentin Crisp

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781585679454
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	10/30/2007
Series:	Gormenghast Series , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	7.94(w) x 10.88(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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 the celebrated Gormenghast novels, Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone, and the posthumously published Titus Awakes, the lost book of Gormenghast finished by Peake’s wife Maeve Gilmore after his death. The Gormenghast novels, as well as Peake’s other writings, Mr. Pye and Peake’s Progress, are all available from The Overlook Press.