In an interview on BBC Radio 4, Sebastian Peake, son of Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore, discussed the forthcoming publication of the recently discovered manuscript of Titus Awakes. Four publishing houses have expressed interest in the book, including Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House which already publishes the first three Gormenghast novels. Until now, only three pages of Titus Awakes had seen publication, such as those that appear in the Overlook Press omnibus edition of the Gormenghast novels.
Titus Awakes was incomplete at the time of Mervyn Peake’s death and was later completed by his wife Maeve. Working from the two opening lines originally penned by Peake, and a page and a half of his notes providing the outline of the story, Maeve Gilmore wrote the rest of this 210 page novel. She apparently never sought to have the book published, and so it remained undiscovered in an attic until the manuscript was found by their granddaughter Christian. The is nothing to indicate that another book Peake planned in the series, Gormenghast Revisited, received a similar treatment. It seems Maeve Gilmore wrote Titus Awakes to act as the concluding volume of the series.
Mervyn Peake’s work has had a serious impact on the modern English fantasy genre, influencing such notable authors as Angela Carter, Graham Joyce, China Miéville, and Michael Moorcock. Those who wish to learn more about Peake, his life and work, would do well to search the internet for Moorcocke’s essay An Excellence of Peake, and their library or used bookstore for Maeve Gilmore’s A World Away: A Memoir of Mervyn Peake. A World Away was also reprinted alongside Sebastian Peake’s A Child of Bliss in the book Mervyn Peake: Two Lives, which is still in print in the UK.
