A Child of Bliss/A World Away

'Peake himself comes alive in this touching memoir... Written in love and pain, this book reaches back beyond years of terrible illness...a love story as strangely haunting as the talent of the man himself' Evening Standard

It is impossible not to be moved by Maeve Gilmore's memoir of her husband... The personal story underlying the creation of Peake's works in prose, verse and pictorial line is both heartbreaking and idyllic... The moral of Maeve Gilmore's exquisite and poignant book is that life is hell, but we had better be grateful for the consolations of love and art

Peake himself comes alive in this touching memoir [A World Away]... Written in love and pain, this book reaches back beyond the years of terrible illness... A love story as strangely haunting as the talent of the man himself

Mervyn Peake, artist and writer, whose haunted work opened windows on some the key horrors of the age, indeed of the ages, and whose own life was cut short by crippling nervous disease. His work was intensely, startlingly individual... When he died at 57, Sebastian records he had produced over 10,000 drawings and 200 oil paintings as well as his novels, poems and short stories... This is the story of a devoted family

Maeve Patricia Mary Theresa Gilmore was born in London in 1918. Her Irish father was a surgeon from Co. Down and her mother the daughter of the owner of the Western Mail. Maeve grew up in Chelsea and was sent as a boarder to the Convent of the Holy Child in Hastings. At seventeen she spent a year at a Swiss finishing school. When she returned to London she enrolled as a student at the Westminster School of Arts, where on her first day she met Mervyn Peake. Despite disapproval from her father Maeve continued to meet with him and they married in December 1937. Maeve Gilmore died in August 1983 at the age of sixty-five, surviving her husband by fifteen years. 
 
The eldest of Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore's three children, Sebastian was brought up in London, Kent, Surrey and Sark and in his childhood attended nine different schools. A keen interest in languages took him to Europe where he lived in various countries for almost five years. On his return he worked in shops and breweries and set up his own transport, and painting and decorating companies before becoming involved in the wine trade. He now runs his own wine company. Sebastian Peake has a son and three daughters and lives in London.

These profound and moving accounts of life with Mervyn Peake provide poignant and revealing insights into the art, personality and friendships of the author of Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone.

Mervyn Peake

Maeve Gilmore

Brian Sibley

Titus Awakes is a treasure salvaged from the ruins

Peake does not, as some have said, defy classification; rather, he is beyond classification in any single genre, and therein perhaps lies his genius. In his centenary year it is to be hoped that the latest surge of interest in his enormous range of work will finally help to place him in his rightful position as one of Britain's most brilliant, original and creative figures

A century after his birth, the gothic surrealism of Peake's fantasy world still attracts new fans

The Lost Book of Gormenghast

In Titus Awakes the 77th Earl of Groan leaves the crumbling castle of Gormenghast and finds the larger world even stranger than his birthplace. Confronted by elemental and human threats - snowstorms, shipwrecks and attempts on his life - Titus' bravery is tested and he must fight to free himself from the claims of his past. 
 
Peake began this fourth and final volume of the Gormenghast stories but he died having only written a few pages. Using notes and the fragments he left behind, his wife, the painter and writer Maeve Gilmore, has created a richly imagined sequel that fans of The Gormenghast Trilogy will delight in.

Maeve Gilmore

Praise for Titus Awakes

Titus Awakes is a treasure salvaged from the ruins

Peake does not, as some have said, defy classification; rather, he is beyond classification in any single genre, and therein perhaps lies his genius. In his centenary year it is to be hoped that the latest surge of ...

A century after his birth, the gothic surrealism of Peake's fantasy world still attracts new fans

Titus Awakes is a treasure salvaged from the ruins

Peake does not, as some have said, defy classification; rather, he is beyond classification in any single genre, and therein perhaps lies his genius. In his centenary year it is to be hoped that the latest surge of ...

A century after his birth, the gothic surrealism of Peake's fantasy world still attracts new fans

Titus Awakes is a treasure salvaged from the ruins

Peake does not, as some have said, defy classification; rather, he is beyond classification in any single genre, and therein perhaps lies his genius. In his centenary year it is to be hoped that the latest surge of ...

A century after his birth, the gothic surrealism of Peake's fantasy world still attracts new fans

Books by Maeve Gilmore

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