A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Peake has created a world where all is like a dream'lush, fantastical, vivid, and yet symbolic of a dark struggle.
At the center of everything is the seventy-seventh earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. When he is crowned, he is called 'Child-Inheritor of the rivers, of the Tower of Flints and the dark recesses beneath cold stairways'Child-Inheritor of the spring breezes that blow in from the jarl forests and of the autumn misery in petal, scale, and wing.'
'Robert Whitfield is calm and fastidious-voiced in third person narration, giving us time to revel in the book's surreal description and ghastly ambience'.In the book's dialogue, however, he takes on the Gormenghast menagerie with brio and versatility, giving each character a distinctive, appropriate voice'Overall his narration is a masterly rendition of a lurid and haunting work.' 'Washington Post
Deep in the labyrinthine corridors of Gormenghast Castle, a child is born. Titus, 77th Earl of Groan, is heir to arcane and all-embracing rituals that determine the activities of everyone from Lord Sepulchrave, his father, to the vast cook, Swelter, and the irrepressible Dr Prunesquallor. But not the steely and devious Steerpike, who will lie, cheat and even murder to get on. One of the greatest feats of sustained imaginative writing, the world of Gormenghast Castle is brilliantly realised in this darkly fantastic novel. Its rich description and vivid characters make it one of the most enduringly popular works of the 20th century.
As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.
A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels, which reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At their center is the seventy-seventh earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.
In this third volume, Titus turns against the iron discipline of Gormenghast Castle and sets forth on an uncertain quest'for himself. His pilgrimage leads to encounters with mysteriously omnipotent police and a battle to the death with Veil, a fearsome ogre with a body like whips and a face that moves 'like the shiftings of the gray slime of the pit.' In his quest for independence from his legacy, Titus successfully captures the universal struggle to 'come of age.'
Titus Groan has fled the rambling, ruined and ruinous castle of Gormenghast, desperate for a view of the world beyond. But he wasn't prepared for this. Satellites, death-rays, sinister policemen and underworld outcasts live in a nightmarish contemporary city that feels like something by Wells, Burroughs or Philip K. Dick. Threatened and lost, he begins to miss the home he left; but surely he won't be tempted back? Titus Alone is a completely unexpected development, its bizarre and absurd satirical vision placing the dangers of progressive modernity against the deadening force of tradition.
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In this final part of the trilogy, we follow Titus, now almost twenty, as he escapes from the Castle, flees its oppressive Ritual, and becomes lost in a sandstorm. Helped by the owner of a travelling zoo, Muzzlehatch, and his ex-lover Juno, Titus ends up stranded in a big, bustling city. No one there having heard of Gormenghast, the general consensus is that the boy is deranged, and with no papers, he's soon arrested for vagrancy. But there are a few people who believe in his story, or at least who are intrigued by it, and they try to help him. And now Titus, the deserter, the traitor, longs for his home, and looks for it all the time to prove, if only to himself, that Gormenghast is truly real.
The third of the bestselling Gormenghast trilogy. Now available as an audiobook.
Paul Rhys, Miranda Richardson and Carl Prekopp star in this major six-part BBC Radio Classic Serial based on the writings of Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore.
The life and times of Titus Groan, 77th Earl of Gormenghast - a vast stronghold of crumbling masonry steeped in immemorial ritual and inhabited by an extraordinary cavalcade of characters including the kitchen boy, Steerpike, who ruthlessly rises to the upper echelons of dynastic power through mischief and murder. Based on the novels written by Mervyn Peake and on the recently discovered concluding volume, Titus Alone, written by his widow, the six one-hour episodes chronicle Titus' life from birth, through childhood and adolescence to his decision to renounce his title and embark on an exploration of the alien world beyond the confines of his home. It is a journey in search of identity that eventually takes him to a distant island where he encounters the man who is none other than his creator.
The 'Gormenghast' trilogy is both a powerful and unique fantasy and a satirical allegory on the fancies, foibles and phobias of the world around us, and this BBC Radio production brings Peake's extraordinary imagination to vivid life. Featuring a star cast including James Fleet, Tamsin Greig and Olivia Hallinan, it was dramatised for radio by Brian Sibley. The series was produced by Jeremy Mortimer.
A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast trilogy, which reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.
In this second volume, Titus comes of age within the walls of Gormenghast Castle and discovers various family intrigues. Having been "exiled" to grow up with the common children until the age of fifteen, Titus has discovered secret hiding places in the castle from where he can watch and learn unobserved. Disconnected from his future responsibilities, Titus drifts back and forth between the complicated social world he will grow up to govern and a world of fantasy and daydream.
"This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time."-Washington Post Book World
Titus, Earl of Groan, is becoming aware of a world beyond the suffocating confines of Gormenghast, bound by centuries of tradition into a pattern of decaying rituals. He yearns for freedom. Meanwhile the amoral Steerpike continues to forge his way into a position of power, leaving death in his wake and nearly dying in the process. But his rise places him at odds with Titus himself; and only one will survive. This award-winning sequel displays all of Mervyn Peake's imaginative brilliance in creating and sustaining the extraordinary world of Gormenghast.
Enter the world of Gormenghast...the vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. 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, manipulation and murder.
Gormenghast is more than a sequel to Titus Groan - it is an enrichment and deepening of that book.The fertility of incident, character and rich atmosphere combine in a tour de force that ranks as one of the twentieth century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.
