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Happy 100th birthday, Mervyn Peake

Steerpike's picture
Posted by Steerpike on 9 July 2011 - 9:50am.

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I want to get hold of 'The Sunday Books'...

Here's the blurb from Amazon:

This beautifully illustrated hardback is a unique gift to Peake fans everywhere. Every Sunday on the Isle of Sark, Mervyn Peake would tell his children stories about pirates, shipwrecks and the Wild West. He illustrated his spontaneous stories with delightfully vivid drawings of the characters in his tales, but never set down words to go with them. Now, decades after Peake's death, world-renowned fantasy writer (and friend of the Peakes) Michael Moorcock has written verses to go with Peake's drawings. The result of this star collaboration - by turns funny, surprising and haunting - is accompanied by an illuminating and touching introduction by Moorcock. Duckworth is publishing The Sunday Books to mark the centenary of Peake's birth, which will be commemorated around the world.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunday-Books-Mervyn-Peake/dp/0715641719/ref=sr_1...

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Patrick Crowther | 9 July 2011 - 10:05am

More evidence of the genius of a fascinating man

In my last year of school I became ill enough to be hospitalised for a time. My English teacher - the best teacher I ever had - sent me the Penguin editions of the Gormenghast trilogy. Over the years I read and reread these books - the pages are now yellowed and falling out, but I have never lost the feeling of wonder I get from this extended flight of fantasy. As an illustrator he has few peers. A true English eccentric whose tragic life was transcended by the alternative worlds he created.

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Steerpike | 9 July 2011 - 10:32am

You know I have never read him.

And I read a lot of fantasy when I was young. I still occasionally do. Is Peake a writer that you need to read when you're young? If a late thirties person picked up Titus Groan, is there a chance he'd like it?

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ganglesprocket | 9 July 2011 - 10:45am

I thinks so, yes

Gormenghast is not typical fantasy fare. There are no hobbits, Goblins, sword nor sorcery - though the characters are eccentric. There are parts of it which remind me of Conrad's Heart of Darkness - but that could be just me. A more accurate comparison is with the Gothic Novels of the 18th and 19th centuries - Mathew Lewis's The Monk, Walpole's Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker.

These are only rough comparisons though - there is really nothing quite like it.

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Steerpike | 9 July 2011 - 11:22am

Titus Groan has been bumped up my reading list then.

Mrs G is a fan, it is in the house.

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ganglesprocket | 9 July 2011 - 4:19pm

Great comparisons

It's such a shame that this gets dumped in the fantasy genre, which puts some people off automatically. There is so much more to it than that.

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MrLovegrove | 11 July 2011 - 5:44pm

Such as a first hand view of Belsen

which had got to change a man ... it's serendipitous that the BL has Ballard and Peake on show in two dfferent places at once ... much food for thought on responses to the past century.

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SpaceBoy | 7 August 2011 - 12:34pm

Irma Wants a Party

best chapter title ever

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simonperrins | 9 July 2011 - 3:45pm

Must...

...resist...

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Lando Cakes | 9 July 2011 - 5:01pm

Off to see this later on today:

http://pressandpolicy.bl.uk/Press-Releases/The-Worlds-of-Mervyn-Peake-5-...

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Dr.Pill | 10 July 2011 - 12:40am

Went myself yesterday

we hadn't been to BL before-excellent, and when coupled with the SF show
http://www.bl.uk/sciencefiction
AND Lennon & McCartney maniscripts etc
AND a Prom, 'twas a grand day out

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SpaceBoy | 7 August 2011 - 12:13pm

Great to see a few items from the Ballard archive

in the SF exhibition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/04/j-g-ballard-relics-red-hot-m...

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SpaceBoy | 7 August 2011 - 10:33pm
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