Gormenghast Trilogy: Gormenghast / Titus Alone / Titus Groan (3 Volume Set in slipcase) (original 1967; edition 2000)

by Mervyn Peake

Series: Gormenghast (1-3)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Conversations / Mentions
4,415	67	2,617	(4.12)	3 / 86
"Enter the world of Gormenghast: a vast, crumbling castle of labyrinthine corridors and cloisters, turrets and dungeons. At the center is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, Lord and heir to all. Titus is expected to rule this extraordinary kingdom and his eccentric and wayward subjects, but he longs for a life beyond the castle walls. With the arrival of an ambitious kitchen boy, Steerpike, the established order is thrown into disarray. Things are changing and Titus must contend with a kingdom about to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation, and murder."--Jacket.… (more)

▾Book information

Member:	tahanis
Title:	Gormenghast Trilogy: Gormenghast / Titus Alone / Titus Groan (3 Volume Set in slipcase)
Authors:	Mervyn Peake
Info:	Folio Society (2000), Hardcover
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	None

Work Information

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (1967)

all members

▾Members

Recently added by	mrshen, bigship, tgoff765, Jeffsul, JoeFieldWriter, davidrobertsmith, thebookshedatguild, stubooks, teenybeanie25, IntrovertedFaerie13
Legacy Libraries	Edward Estlin Cummings

▾Tags

▾LibraryThing Recommendations

▾Member recommendations

10
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey (martlet)
21
Little, Big by John Crowley (chrisharpe)
22
Lanark by Alasdair Gray (chrisharpe)

▾Will you like it?

▾Conversations (About links)

Group › Topic	Messages	Last Message
Folio Society Devotees: Gormenghast LE 2022	346 unread / 346	Willoyd, April 2023
Folio Society Devotees: Gormenghast LE!	41 unread / 41	Uppernorwood, May 2022
2013 Category Challenge: Group Read: Gormenghast Trilogy - Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone	70 unread / 70	soffitta1, October 2013

» See also 86 mentions

▾Member reviews

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 67 (next | show all)

October 2017: I finally read through the whole book this time, and enjoyed it. It took me a looong time though; the prose is so dense and the pace of the story is molasses-slow. I would put this down to read other things and come back to it. I love the idea of the book-- the idea, the setting, the bizarre characters-- but I wasn't always in the mood for something so slow, nor was I captivated by every single plot thread/character. I always devoured Steerpike's scenes though!

October 2014 DNF ~55%: I really wanted to like this book but it just wasn't working for me. The prose is beautiful but dense and plodding and heavy. The story moves along at such a slow pace, and while there are times where I enjoy books like this, I really had difficulty staying attentive with this one. (

)

serru | Oct 6, 2022 |

How do you review a book that can't be compared to anything else? One of my favorite books of all time. Titus Groan and especially Gormenghast are outstanding. Titus Alone is a strange sequel that probably was influenced somewhat by Peake's progressing disease. Still worth reading.

Bizarre, fantastical, Gothic, symbolic, surrealistic, beautiful. Peake's language is superb. Some of the most gorgeous prose to read. (

)

Gumbywan | Jun 24, 2022 |

Master of the Gothic fantasy and beyond. (

)

RupertOwen | Apr 27, 2021 |

I finally finished it by listening to it at work on my MP3 player. It is very dense. I like the characters; I like the creation of place; I like that it doesn't follow obvious story lines and that characters don't live or die based on how sympathetic they are.

The first 2 books are definitely better than the last third of the trilogy, but the last, Titus Alone, gives some place to the country of Gormenghast castle that is absent in Titus Groan and Gormenghast.

I have only recommended this to one friend I think will enjoy the language and meandering plat development as much as I did. This is NOT light reading. (

)

KittyCunningham | Apr 26, 2021 |

A very laborious volume that takes some time to get into - but it is worth it. There were sections that were very interesting, sections where I laughed out loud, and sections where I felt the pathos strongly. I empathized with several of the characters. It is unfortunate that Titus Alone is basically a skeleton, unfinished - and that Peake was unable to complete the series with one or two more volumes. (

)

quinton.baran | Mar 29, 2021 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 67 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

no reviews | add a review

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (23 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Peake, Mervyn	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Burgess, Anthony	Introduction	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Crisp, Quentin S.	Introduction	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Hellar, Julek	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Miéville, China	Introduction	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Michael Moorcock	Introduction	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Moorcock, Michael	Introduction	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

Gormenghast (1-3)

Belongs to Publisher Series

The Folio Society

Is contained in

The Gormenghast Trilogy with Titus Awakes by Mervyn Peake

Contains

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

Has the (non-series) prequel

Boy in Darkness by Mervyn Peake

Has the adaptation

Gormenghast: A Fantasy Opera by Irmin Schmidt

▾Awards and Honors

Distinctions

Locus All-Time Best (Fantasy Novel – 1998)

Notable Lists

Fantasy: The 100 Best Books (1946)

Mir Fantastiki: 100 main fantasy and science-fiction books (No Category)

Waterstones Books of the Century (1997)

view history

▾Common Knowledge

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.

For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.

Canonical title

The Gormenghast Trilogy

Original title

Alternative titles

The Gormenghast Novels

The Gormenghast Trilogy

The Titus Books

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Gormenghast (2000 | IMDb)

Epigraph

Dost thou love picking meat? Or would'st thou see/A man in the clouds, and have him speak to thee?
-- Bunyan

Dedication

For Maeve

First words

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.

Introduction by Quentin Crisp: Style is a terrible thing to happen to anybody.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Davies, Robertson

Lewis, C.S.

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

▾Book descriptions

"Enter the world of Gormenghast: a vast, crumbling castle of labyrinthine corridors and cloisters, turrets and dungeons. At the center is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, Lord and heir to all. Titus is expected to rule this extraordinary kingdom and his eccentric and wayward subjects, but he longs for a life beyond the castle walls. With the arrival of an ambitious kitchen boy, Steerpike, the established order is thrown into disarray. Things are changing and Titus must contend with a kingdom about to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation, and murder."--Jacket.

▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Introduction by Quentin Crisp (p. ix),
Introduction by Anthony Burgess (p. 1),
Titus Groan (p.7),
Gormenghast (p. 397),
Titus Alone (p. 809),
Critical Assessments (p.1025) includes:
"The critical reception of Mervyn Peake's Titus Books" by G. Peter Winnington;
"Memories of Mervyn Peake" by Louise Collis;
"The Gutters of Gormenghast" by Hugh Brogan;
"Situating Gormenghast" by Ronald Binns;
"'The Passions in their Clay': Mervyn Peake's Titus Stories" by Joseph L. Sanders;
"Titus and the Thing in Gormenghast" by Christiano Rafanelli;
"Fuschia and Steerpike: Mood and Form" by G. Peter Winnington;
"Gormenghast: Psychology of the Bildungsroman" by Bruce Hunt;
"Gormenghast: Fairytale gone wrong" by Margaret Ochocki;
"The Cry of a Fighting Cock: Notes on Steerpike and Ritual in Gormenghast" by Ann Yeoman;
"Beowulf to Kafka: Mervyn Peake's Titus Alone" by Colin Greenland;
"A Critical Conclusion: The End of Titus Alone" by Laurence Bristow-Smith;
"A Barrier of Foolery? The Depiction of Women in Titus Alone" by Tanya Gardiner-Scott
Titus Awakes (p. 1165)

Haiku summary