Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast

Paul Hirons 

The novels, Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone,  were written by the talented Mervyn Peake (1911-1968), a playwright, painter, poet, illustrator, costume designer and novelist. Paul will explore the unique world of Peake’s Gormenghast and the struggles the author endured to produce the final instalment against the harrowing backdrop of his rapidly failing health. He will also tell the remarkable and moving story of how Titus returned to us more than fifty years later in Titus Awakes. Peake died in Oxfordshire at the age of 57.

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Mervyn Peake lived from 1911 to 1968.  He created stories of an imaginary world, set in a crumbling castle with a crew of dark Dickensian characters, in the 1940s and 1950s. He is known as a writer of fantasy fiction, but he was also a painter, illustrator, playwright and poet.

The trilogy features Titus Groan, 77th. Earl of Gormenghast.  At the end of Book 1, Titus is one year old and the book includes Steerpike, a villain. In Book 2, Gormenghast, Titus is 7-17 years’ old, and Steerpike becomes even more influential.  In Book 3, Titus Alone, the protagonist leaves Gormenghast and enters an even weirder, dark world. Peake also wrote other books.

Peake was born in China where his parents were Christian missionaries. They returned to England in 1923 as his mother was ill.  The appearance of Gormenghast was influenced by Peake’s time in China.  Peake was obsessed with drawing and very precocious.  He went to Eltham College (popular with religious people) and left in 1929.  He went to art school in Croydon, and then to the Royal Academy of Arts for five years. When he left, he went to Sark to establish a new gallery where he had exhibitions, but he left under a cloud as he did not get on with the Dame, who ruled the island.

In 1937 he married an ex-student, Maeve Gilmore, whom he had met in 1936, when he was at the Westminster School of Art. She was a romantic Byronic figure! Her parents had sent her away to Germany but love triumphed. In January 1940 they had a son.

Peake wanted to be a war artist.  He was in the Royal Artillery until 1942, and shortages made painting difficult!  Another son was born in April 1942. He also had a nervous breakdown.  In 1945 he went to the Belsen concentration camp as a war artist.  He wrote Book 1, Titus Groan, from 1940 to 1946, in between duties.  Graham Green was critical of it, but it sold out despite mixed reviews. It came out in paperback in 1968, after Peake’s death.

He also wrote Gormenghast, which was published in 1950. Meanwhile, he had returned to Sark in 1946 and in 1949 he had a daughter.  During the 1950s he was successful but increasingly ill. He also published some poetry including Glassblowers, about valve making.  In 1951 he received the WA Heineman award for literature both for this and for Gormenghast.

There were radio adaptations of his book, Mr Pye (1953), set in Sark, and also of Titus Groan.  Mr Pye did not sell well, but it was dramatized on Channel 4 in 1986 starring Derek Jacobi.  A play, The Wit to Woo was performed in 1957.  By 1959 Peake’s creative time was virtually over, as early onset dementia caused a severe decline in his health.  In between Book 2, Gormenghast, and Book 3, Peake wrote a novella called Boy in Darkness in 1956.

In Book 3, Titus Alone, Titus escapes from the castle and into the real and modern world.  There were influences from William Golding and John Wyndham.  It features the 'Under River' and this was influenced by Peake’s experiences at Belsen.  It is a very sad book.

In 1965 Peake went to the Priory psychiatric hospital, paid for by the income from his books as they were becoming more popular, and he became more famous. He died aged only 57, in 1968.  The first line of one of his poems 'To live at all is miracle enough' was inscribed on his gravestone.

His influence on others was subliminal but potent, according to Paul Hirons.  He also left a legacy, the production of Book 4, Titus Awakes, by his wife, Maeve Gilmore from a fragment by him.  The story ends on Sark. The manuscript was lost after her death in 1983, but a draft was found later by his granddaughter and published to great acclaim in 2011.

Paul Hiron’s talk was informative and interesting.  A straw poll indicated that the audience was largely unaware of the details of Peake’s life and works, even though the books were known to us!

Report by Helen Elliott.