Books

Titus Groan, 1946. 213 x 134mm, strawberry red cloth, spine lettered, ruled & ornamented in gilt, pp.438 + final blank leaf. Fine copy in fine, unmarked 2nd impression pictorial dustwrapper. Dustwrapper design by Peake of crow perching on a chained crown. Gormenghast, 1950. 214 x 135mm, brownish red cloth, spine lettered, ruled & ornamented in gilt, pp.454 + final blank leaf. Title-page drawing by Peake. Very good clean copy in colour facsimile Peake dustwrapper, with design of flame-like clouds above Gormenghast castle. Titus Alone, 1959. 215 x 134mm, dark red cloth, spine lettered, ruled & ornamented in gilt, pp.224, line-drawn frontispiece by Peake. Top edge & fore-edges faintly foxed, otherwise a fine copy in very good clipped pictorial dustwrapper with design by Peake of Titus silhouetted against a rocky landscape; spine panel sunned, with short closed repaired tears at head. 3 vols. Together with: Titus Groan. A Radio Play. Introduction by Brian Sibley. 1st edition, Mervyn Peake Society 1987/88. 212 x 146mm, stiff pictorial wrappers, upper cover lettered in red in windows over Peake's original design for the dustwrapper of the first UK edition, pp.98. [Publisher's advertisement on reverse of lower wrapper numbered '99']. Edition limited to about 200 copies. Fine copy. A (very slightly) revised transcript of the original BBC script (1956), with five previously unpublished full-page sketches by Peake. 4 items. I specialise in Mervyn Peake. Enquiries welcome.

Titus Groan is the first novel in the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake. It tells the story of the eponymous castle, the Groan family who inhabits it, and the servants and retainers who fill its halls. It paints a richly detailed picture of a gothic landscape and the bizarre rituals and traditions that dominate the lives of its characters.