Mervyn Laurence Peake (July 9, 1911 – November 17, 1968) 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. is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem specific to England — the anthem of the United Kingdom is God Save the Queen. See also Proposed English National Anthems. ... Modernist literature is the literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism; it should not be confused with modern literature, which is the history of the modern novel and modern poetry as one. ... Gormenghast Castle in the BBC miniseries Gormenghast is a fictional castle of titanic proportions that features prominently in a series of fantasy works penned by Mervyn Peake. ... J. R. R. Tolkien in 1916. ... “Dickens” redirects here. ... Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. ...

Peake also wrote poetry and literary nonsense in verse form, short stories for adults and children ("Letters from a Lost Uncle"), stage and radio plays, and Mr Pye, a relatively tightly-structured novel in which God implicitly mocks the evangelical pretensions and cosy world-view of the eponymous hero. Literary Nonsense refers to literature in which there are either nonsensical words, or the meaning does not make the slightest bit of sense. ... Mr Pye is a short novel by English novelist Mervyn Peake. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

Peake first made his reputation as a painter and illustrator during the 1930s and 1940s, when he lived in London, and he was commissioned to produce portraits of well-known people. A collection of these drawings is still in the possession of his family. Although he gained little popular success in his lifetime, his work was highly respected by his peers, and his friends included Dylan Thomas and Graham Greene. His works are now included in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Imperial War Museum. Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (October 27, 1914 – November 9, 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer. ... This article is about the writer. ... The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in St Martins Place, London, England, which opened to the public in 1856. ... The Imperial War Museum is a museum in London featuring military vehicles, weapons, war memorabilia, a library, a photographic archive, and an art collection of 20th century and later conflicts, especially those involving Britain, and the British Empire. ...

Biography

Mervyn Peake was born of British parents in Kuling (Lushan) in Jiangxi Province of central China in 1911 only three months before the revolution and the founding of the Republic of China. His father Ernest Cromwell Peake was a medical missionary doctor with the London Missionary Society. Chinese influences can be detected in Mervyn's works, not least in the castle of Gormenghast itself, which in some respects echoes the ancient walled city of Peking (Beijing) as well as the enclosed compound where he grew up in Tientsin (Tianjin). It is also likely that his early exposure to the contrasts between the lives of the Europeans, and of the Chinese, and between the poor and the wealthy in China also exerted an influence on the Gormenghast books. Lushan is famous for its villas. ... Jiangxi (Chinese: 江西; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kiangsi) is a southern province of the Peoples Republic of China, spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south. ... Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... For the Chinese civilization, see China. ... The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa. ... Beijing (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«ng; Wade-Giles: Peiching or Pei-ching; IPA: ; literally Northern capital;  ), a metropolis in northern China, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... Tianjin (Chinese: 天津; pinyin: tiān jīn; Postal System Pinyin: Tientsin) is a harbour municipality in China on the Hai He River (from Beijing) and Bohai Gulf of the Yellow Sea (Pacific Ocean). ...

Peake attended Tientsin Grammar School until the family returned to England in 1923 via the Trans-Siberian Railway. His education continued at Eltham College, Mottingham (1923-1929), where his talents were encouraged by his English teacher, Eric Drake. He completed his formal education at Croydon School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools from 1929 to 1933, where he first painted in oils and wrote his first long poems. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy and with the so-called "Soho Group" in 1931. Tianjin (Chinese: 天津; pinyin: tiān jīn; Postal System Pinyin: Tientsin) is a harbour municipality in China on the Hai He River (from Beijing) and Bohai Gulf of the Yellow Sea (Pacific Ocean). ... Trans-Siberian line in red; Baikal Amur Mainline in green. ... This article is about the school in London, England. ... Mottingham is a place in SE9, England in the London Borough of Greenwich, although part (to the west of Mottingham Road) is in the London Borough of Bromley. ... Croydon College is a further education college in the London Borough of Croydon. ... The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Piccadilly, London. ... This article refers to an art institution in London. ...

His early career in the 1930s was as a painter in London, although he lived on the Channel Island of Sark for a time. He first moved to Sark in 1932 where his former teacher Eric Drake was setting up an artists' colony. In 1934 he exhibited with the Sark artists both in the Sark Gallery built by Drake and at the Cooling Galleries in London. In 1935 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and at the Leger Galleries in London. Flag of Sark The location of the Channel Islands in Europe An aerial view of Sark Sark (French: Sercq; Sercquiais: Sèr) is a small feudal island in the southwestern English Channel. ...

In 1936 he returned to London and was commissioned to design the sets and costumes for Insect Play and his work was acclaimed in The Sunday Times. He also began teaching life drawing at Westminster School of Art where he met painter Maeve Gilmore, whom he married in 1937. They had three children, Sebastian (b. 1940), Fabian (b. 1942), and Clare (b. 1949). The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... Figure drawing, also known as life drawing, is an exercise in drawing the human body in its various shapes and positions. ... The Westminster School of Art was a former art school in Westminster, London, England. ...

He had a very successful exhibition of paintings at the Calmann Gallery in London in 1938 and his first book, the self-illustrated children's pirate romance Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (based on a story he had written around 1936) was first published in 1939 by Country Life. In December 1939 he was commissioned by Chatto & Windus to illustrate a children's book, Ride a Cock Horse and Other Nursery Rhymes, published for the Christmas market in 1940. Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Chatto and Windus has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House, the publishers. ...

At the outbreak of World War II he applied to become a war artist for he was keen to put his skills at the service of his country. He imagined An Exhibition by the Artist, Adolf Hitler, in which horrific images of war with ironic titles were offered as 'artworks' by the Nazi leader. Although the drawings were bought by the British Ministry of Information his application was turned down and he was conscripted in the Army, where he served first with the Royal Artillery, then with the Royal Engineers. The Army didn't know what to do with him. He began writing Titus Groan at this time. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Vasily Vereshchagin. ... The Minister of Information is a British government position that was created briefly during the First World War and again during the Second World War. ...

In April 1942, after his requests for commissions as a war artist - or even leave to depict war damage in London - had been consistently refused, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to Southport Hospital. That autumn he was taken on as a graphic artist by the Ministry of Information for a period of six months. The next spring he was invalided out of the Army. In 1943 he was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to paint glassblowers at a Birmingham factory making cathode ray tubes for the early radar sets. The Minister of Information is a British government position that was created briefly during the First World War and again during the Second World War. ... Sculpting hot blown glass. ... Birmingham (pron. ...

The five years between 1943 and 1948 were some of the most productive of his career. He finished Titus Groan and Gormenghast and completed some of his most acclaimed illustrations for books by other authors, including Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark (for which he was reportedly paid only £5) and Alice in Wonderland, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Brothers Grimm's Household Tales, All This and Bevin Too by Quentin Crisp and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as producing many original poems, drawings, and paintings. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) – believed to be a self-portrait Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (IPA: ) (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer. ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) (pronounced ) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. ... For information about the other uses of the name, see Brothers Grimm (disambiguation). ... Quentin Crisp (December 25, 1908) – November 21, 1999), was an English writer, artists model, actor and raconteur known for his memorable and insightful witticisms. ... Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. ... For other uses, see Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (disambiguation). ...

A book of nonsense poems, Rhymes Without Reason, was published in 1944 and was described by John Betjeman as "outstanding". Shortly after the war ended in 1945 he was commissioned by a magazine to visit France and Germany. With writer Tom Pocock he was among the first British civilians to witness the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp at Belsen, where the remaining prisoners, too sick to be moved, were dying before his very eyes. He made several drawings, but not surprisingly he found the experience profoundly harrowing, and expressed in deeply felt poems the ambiguity of turning their suffering into art. A collection of Betjemans poetry, published by John Murray in January 2006 Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Whos Who as a poet and hack. He was born to a middle-class family... National Socialism redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ... Bergen-Belsen, sometimes referred to as just Belsen, was a German concentration camp in the Nazi era. ...

In 1946 the family moved to Sark, where Peake continued to write and illustrate, and Maeve painted. Gormenghast was published in 1950, and the family moved back to England, settling in Smarden, Kent. Peake taught part-time at the Central School of Art, began his comic novel Mr Pye, and renewed his interest in theatre. His father died that year and left his house in Wallington, Surrey to Mervyn. Mr Pye was published in 1953, and he later adapted it as a radio play. The BBC broadcast other plays of his in 1954 and 1956. Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Flag of Sark The location of the Channel Islands in Europe An aerial view of Sark Sark (French: Sercq; Sercquiais: Sèr) is a small feudal island in the southwestern English Channel. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Smarden is a civil parish and village, west of Ashford in Kent, South East England. ... The Kent coat of arms For other uses, see Kent (disambiguation). ... Central Saint Martins at Holborn The Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, (or Central Saint Martins) is one of the leading colleges of art and design in England. ... Wallington is a town in the London Borough of Sutton situated 10. ... Not to be confused with Surry. ... Mr Pye is a short novel by English novelist Mervyn Peake. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1956 Mervyn and Maeve visited Spain, financed by a friend who hoped that Peake's health, which was already declining, would be improved by the holiday. That year his novella Boy in Darkness was published beside stories by William Golding and John Wyndham in a volume called Sometime, Never. On 18 December the BBC broadcast his radio play The Eye of the Beholder (later revised as The Voice of One) in which an avante-garde artist is commissioned to paint a church mural. Peake placed much hope in his play The Wit To Woo which was finally staged in London's West End in 1957, but it was a critical and commercial failure. This affected him greatly -- his health degenerated rapidly and he was again admitted to hospital with a nervous breakdown. Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Boy in Darkness is a horror novella written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1956 in the anthology Sometime, Never. ... Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1983), best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. ... John Wyndham (July 10, 1903 – March 11, 1969) was the pen name used by the often post-apocalyptic British science fiction writer John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. ... is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar). ...

He was showing unmistakable early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, for which he was given electroconvulsive therapy, to little avail. Over the next few years he gradually lost the ability to draw steadily and quickly, although he still managed to produce some drawings with the help of his wife. Among his last completed works were the illustrations for Balzac's Droll Stories (1961) and for his own poem The Rhyme Of The Flying Bomb (1962), which he had written some fifteen years earlier. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock, is a controversial psychiatric treatment in which seizures are induced with electricity. ... Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Titus Alone was published in 1959 and was revised by Langdon Jones in 1970 to remove apparent inconsistencies introduced by the publisher's careless editing. A 1995 edition of all three completed Gormenghast novels includes a very short fragment of the beginning of what would have been the fourth Gormenghast novel, "Titus Awakes", as well as a listing of events and themes he wanted to address in that and later Gormenghast novels. Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Peake died in November 1968. His work, and the Gormenghast books in particular, became much better known and more widely appreciated after his death, and they have since been translated into more than two dozen languages.

Peake's grandson is rising UK chart star Jack Penate.

Four collections of Peake's poems were published during his lifetime; Shapes & Sounds (1941), The Glassblowers (1950), Poems & Drawings (1965), and A Reverie of Bone (1967). After his death there were other publications, Selected Poems - Mervyn Peake (1972), and The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (1973), plus The Drawings of Mervyn Peake (1974) and Writings and Drawings (1974), followed by Peake's Progress in (1979). For the movie, see 1941 (film). ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb is a narrative poem written by Mervyn Peake in 1947, and published with his felt-pen illustrations in 1962. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ...

Dramatic adaptations of Peake's work

In 1983, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast eight hour-long episodes for radio dramatising the complete Gormenghast Trilogy. This was the only adaptation to include the third book Titus Alone. Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC is Australias national non-profit public broadcaster. ... Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ...

In 1984, BBC Radio 4 broadcast two 90-minute plays based on Titus Groan and Gormenghast, adapted by Brian Sibley and starring Sting as Steerpike and Freddie Jones as the Artist (narrator). A slightly abridged compilation of the two, running to 160 minutes, and entitled Titus Groan of Gormenghast, was broadcast on Christmas Day, 1992. BBC 7 repeated the original versions on 21 and 28 September 2003. This article is about the year. ... old Radio 4 logo BBC Radio 4 is a UK domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Titus Groan can refer to: The first book in the Gormenghast Series The protagonist of those books An obscure 1970s progressive-rock band from Great Britain This is a disambiguation page — a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... Brian Sibley is a British writer. ... Sting in Budapest, 2000 Gordon Matthew Sumner, CBE (born October 2, 1951), usually known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. ... Illustration of Steerpike by Mervyn Peake Steerpike is a character in Mervyn Peakes novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. ... Freddie Jones (born September 12, 1927) is a British character actor. ... Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus, at the first Christmas Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a holiday in the Christian calendar, usually observed on December 25, which celebrates the birth of Jesus. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... The original logo of BBC 7. ... (Redirected from 21 September) September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1986 Mr Pye was adapted as a four-part Channel 4 miniseries starring Derek Jacobi. Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE (IPA: ) (born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and director, knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre. ...

In 2000, the BBC and WGBH Boston co-produced a lavish miniseries, titled Gormenghast, based on the first two books of the series. It starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike, Neve McIntosh as Fuchsia, June Brown as Nannie Slagg, Ian Richardson as Lord Groan, Christopher Lee as Flay, Richard Griffiths as Swelter, Warren Mitchell as Barquentine, Celia Imrie as Countess Gertrude, Lynsey Baxter and Zoë Wanamaker as the twins, Cora and Clarice, and John Sessions as Dr Prunesquallor. The supporting cast included Olga Sosnovska, Stephen Fry and Eric Sykes and the series is also notable as the last screen performance by comedy legend Spike Milligan (as the Headmaster). Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... WGBH is an established public television and public radio broadcast service located in Boston, Massachusetts. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (born Jonathan Michael Francis OKeeffe on 27 July 1977) is an Irish actor and Golden Globe winner. ... Neve McIntosh, Scotish actress born on January 1, 1972 in Paisley, Scotland. ... June Brown (born 16 February 1927) is an English actress and director, best known as Dot Branning in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. ... Ian William Richardson CBE (7 April 1934 – 9 February 2007) was a Scottish actor best known for playing the Machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart in the House of Cards trilogy for the BBC. // Born in Edinburgh, Richardson was educated at Balgreen Primary School and Tynecastle High School in the city,[1... Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922) is an English actor known for his professional longevity and his distinctive basso delivery. ... Richard Griffiths (born 31 July 1947) is a Tony award winning English actor who has appeared on stage, film and television. ... Warren Mitchell (born 14 January 1926) is an English actor. ... Celie Imrie (born 15 July 1952 in Guildford England) is a British actress. ... Lynsey Baxter (born on 7 May 1965 in London, England) is an English actress. ... Zoë Wanamaker CBE (born 13 May 1949) is an American-born English actress. ... John Sessions (born January 11, 1953) is a Scottish actor and comedian. ... Olga Sosnovska (Sosnowska) (born May 21, 1972 in Warsaw) is a Polish-born UK/US-based actress. ... Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English comedian, writer, actor, novelist, filmmaker and television personality. ... Eric Sykes in the Sykes TV series (DVD) The Plank (DVD cover) Eric Sykes, CBE (born May 4, 1923 in Oldham, Lancashire) is a British comedic writer and actor. ... Terence Alan Milligan KBE (16 April 1918–27 February 2002), known as Spike Milligan, was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. ...

The 30-minute TV short film A Boy In Darkness (also made in 2000 and adapted from Peake's novella) was the first production from the BBC Drama Lab. It was set in a 'virtual' computer-generated world created by young computer game designers, and starred Jack Ryder (from EastEnders) as Titus, with Terry Jones (Monty Python's Flying Circus) narrating. Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... Jack as Jamie Mitchell in EastEnders. ... EastEnders is a popular BBC television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 on 19 February 1985[4] and continuing to date. ... Terence Graham Parry Jones (born in Colwyn Bay, Wales, on February 1, 1942) is a British comedian, screenwriter and actor, film director, childrens author, popular historian, political commentator and TV documentary host. ... This article discusses the series itself. ...

Irmin Schmidt, founder of seminal German 'Krautrock' group Can wrote an opera called Gormenghast, based on the novels; it was first performed in Wuppertal, Germany, in November 1998. A number of early songs by New Zealand rock group Split Enz were inspired by Peake's work. The song "The Drowning Man," by British band The Cure, is inspired by events in Gormenghast, and the song "Lady Fuschia" by another British band, the Strawbs, is also based on events in the novels. Irmin Schmidt (born May 29, 1937) is a keyboard player probably best known as a member of Can. ... Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s. ... Can was a musical group formed in West Germany in 1968. ... Split Enz was a successful New Zealand band during the late 1970s and the early 1980s featuring brothers Tim Finn and Neil Finn. ... The Drowning Man is a song from The Cures 1981 album Faith. The song is based on Fuchsia Groan, a character from Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. ... The Cure are an English rock band that formed in Crawley, Sussex in 1976. ... The Strawbs are a rock band founded in 1964 in England. ...

Bibliography

• Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (1939)
• Shapes and Sounds (1941)
• Rhymes without Reason (1944)
• Titus Groan (1946)
• The Craft of the Lead Pencil (1946)
• Letters from a Lost Uncle (from Polar Regions) (1948)
• Drawings by Mervyn Peake (1949)
• Gormenghast (1950)
• The Glassblowers (1950)
• Mr Pye (1953)
• Figures of Speech (1954)
• Titus Alone (1959)
• The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (1962)
• Poems and Drawings (1965)
• A Reverie of Bone and other Poems (1967)
• Selected Poems (1972)
• A Book of Nonsense (1972)
• The Drawings of Mervyn Peake (1974)
• Mervyn Peake: Writings and Drawings (1974)
• Twelve Poems (1975)
• Boy in Darkness (first separate edition, 1976)
• Peake's Progress (1978)
• Ten Poems (1993)
• Eleven Poems (1995)
• The Cave (1996)

This page is about the book. ... Ostensibly a book for children, this book by Mervyn Peake is a combination of pencil drawing and typed manuscript. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... Mr Pye is a short novel by English novelist Mervyn Peake. ... Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ... The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb is a narrative poem written by Mervyn Peake in 1947, and published with his felt-pen illustrations in 1962. ... Boy in Darkness is a horror novella written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1956 in the anthology Sometime, Never. ...

Illustrated books

• Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (by himself) (Country Life, 1939)
• Ride a Cock Horse and Other Nursery Rhymes (Chatto & Windus, 1940)
• Hunting of the Snark (by Lewis Carroll)
• Alice in Wonderland (by Lewis Carroll)
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
• Household Tales (by the Brothers Grimm)
• All This and Bevin Too (by Quentin Crisp)
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (by Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Treasure Island (by Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Droll Stories (by Balzac) (Folio Society, 1961)
• The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (by himself) (1962)

Lewis Carrolls The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) is a comic poem about a group of adventurers hunting a legendary beast. ... Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) – believed to be a self-portrait Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (IPA: ) (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer. ... Alice in Wonderland is the widely known and used title for Alices Adventures in Wonderland, a book written by Lewis Carroll -- as well as several movie adaptations of the book -- and is also the setting for several short stories. ... One of a set of engraved metal plate illustrations by Gustave Doré. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem written by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–1799 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798). ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) (pronounced ) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. ... For information about the other uses of the name, see Brothers Grimm (disambiguation). ... Quentin Crisp (December 25, 1908) – November 21, 1999), was an English writer, artists model, actor and raconteur known for his memorable and insightful witticisms. ... For other uses, see Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (disambiguation). ... Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. ... Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of buccaneers and buried gold. First published as a book in 1883, it was originally serialised in the childrens magazine Young Folks between 1881-82 under the title The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island. ... Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. ... Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist. ...

Quotes about Peake

• "Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It (Gormenghast trilogy) is a very, very great work ... a classic of our age."
  • Robertson Davies

• "[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

• "Fuchsia was my dream. This idea of the infinite, of the unreal, of the innocence dying..."
  • Robert Smith (musician) 2003 (about the Peake character that inspired the early Cure song "The Drowning Man" in 1980)

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, literary critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ... William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. ... Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, was an Irish author and scholar. ... For other persons named Robert Smith, see Robert Smith (disambiguation). ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Mervyn Peake

• Mervyn Peake, the official site
• Gormenghast, the official Gormenghast site
• Peake Studies, the periodical dedicated to Peake's life and work
• the Peake entry in the Literary Encyclopedia
• The Scriptorium: Mervyn Peake
• "An Excellence of Peake", by Michael Moorcock
• Gormenghast Castle
• Self-portrait from the National Portrait Gallery collection
• Interview with Sebastian Peake, Mervyn Peake's son, on wotmania.com

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... Michael John Moorcock (born December 18, 1939, in London, England) is a prolific English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels. ...

References

• Winnington, G. Peter (ed.) (2006) Mervyn Peake: the man and his art. (London: Peter Owen)
• Winnington, G. Peter (2000) Vast Alchemies: the life and work of Mervyn Peake. (London: Peter Owen)
• Winnington, G. Peter (2006) The Voice of the Heart: the working of Mervyn Peake's imagination. (Liverpool U P / Chicago U P)
• Peake, Mervyn (ca.1950) 'Notes towards a Projected Autobiography', printed in Maeve Gilmore (ed.), Peake's Progress: Selected Writings and Drawings of Mervyn Peake (London: Allen Lane, 1978)