Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Laurence Peake (July 9, 1911 - November 17, 1968) was a British modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books, though the Titus books would be more accurate: the four works that exist were the beginning of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, following his protagonist Titus Groan from cradle to grave, but Peake's untimely death interrupted the cycle at what is now commonly but erroneously called a trilogy. They are sometimes compared to the work of his contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien, but his surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology.

Biography

Mervyn Peake was born in Kuling in central China in 1911 of British parents; his father Ernest Cromwell Peake was a doctor and Christian missionary. Oriental influences can be detected in his work, not least in the castle of Gormenghast itself, which in some respects resembles a Tibetan lamasery more than the Gothic castle it is meant to be. However it is likely that his early exposure to the extreme contrasts between the lives of the poor and the refined, highly structured lives of the Chinese nobility also exerted a strong influence on the Gormenghast books.

Related Topics:
Kuling - China - 1911 - Ernest Cromwell Peake - Doctor - Christian - Missionary - Tibet - Lamasery - Castle

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Peake attended Tientsin Grammar School until the family returned to England in 1923. His education continued at Eltham College, Mottingham (1923-1929), where his talents were encouraged by his English teacher, Eric Drake. He completed his formal education at Croydon School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools from 1929 to 1933, where he first painted in oils and wrote his first long poems. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy and with the so-called "Soho Group" in 1931.

Related Topics:
Tientsin - Eltham College - Mottingham - Croydon School of Art - Royal Academy Schools - Royal Academy - Soho Group

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His early career in the 1930s was as a painter in London, although he lived on the Channel Island of Sark for a time. He first moved to Sark in 1932 after visiting his former teacher Eric Drake, who lived there with a group of other artists. In 1934 he exhibited with the Sark artists at the Cooling Galleries in London and in 1935 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and at the Leger Galleries in London.

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In 1936 he returned to London and was commissioned to design the sets and costumes for Insect Play and his work was acclaimed in the Sunday Times. He also began teaching life drawing at Westminster School of Art where he met painter Maeve Gilmore, whom he married in 1937. They had three children, Sebastian (b. 1940), Fabian (b. 1942), and Clare (b. 1949).

Related Topics:
Sunday Times - Life drawing - Westminster School of Art - Maeve Gilmore

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He had a very successful exhibition of paintings at the Calmann Gallery in London in 1938 and his first book, the self-illustrated children's pirate romance Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (based on a story he had written around 1936) was first published in 1939 by Country Life. In December 1939 he was commissioned by Chatto & Windus to illustrate a children's book, Ride a Cock Horse and Other Nursery Rhymes, published for the Christmas market in 1940.

Related Topics:
1938 - 1939 - Chatto & Windus

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After World War II began he applied to become a war artist in 1940 but this was initially refused and he was conscripted to the Army, where he served first with the Royal Artillery, then with the Royal Engineers. The Army didn't know what to do with him. He began writing Titus Groan at this time.

Related Topics:
World War II - War artist - Conscripted

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In 1942 he was sent to Southport Hospital, suffering from a nervous breakdown. The next year he was invalided out of the Army and began working for the British Ministry of Information as a graphic artist. In 1943 he was commissioned by the War Artists Commission to paint glassblowers making cathode ray tubes for the early radar sets at a Birmingham factory.

Related Topics:
Ministry of Information - Glassblowers - Birmingham

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The five years between 1943 and 1948 were some of the most productive of his career. During this period he finished Titus Groan and Gormenghast and completed some of his most acclaimed illustrations for books by other authors, including Ride a Cock Horse, Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark and Alice in Wonderland, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Brothers Grimm's Household Tales, All This and Bevin Too by Quentin Crisp and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as producing many original poems, drawings, and paintings.

Related Topics:
Lewis Carroll - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Brothers Grimm - Quentin Crisp - Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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A book of nonsense poems, Rhymes Without Reason, was published in 1944 and was described by John Betjeman as "outstanding". In 1945 he was commissioned by a magazine to visit France and Germany shortly after the war had ended. With writer Tom Pocock he was one of the first Britons to witness the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp at Belsen. He made many drawings of the scenes he encountered, but not surprisingly he found the experience profoundly harrowing.

Related Topics:
John Betjeman - France - Germany - Tom Pocock - Nazi - Concentration camp - Belsen

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In 1946 the family moved to Sark, where Peake continued to write and illustrate, and Maeve painted. Gormenghast was published in 1950, and the family moved back to the UK, settling in Smarden, Kent. Peake taught part-time at the Central School of Art, began his comic novel Mr Pye, and renewed his interest in theatre. His father died that year and left his house in Wallington, Surrey to Mervyn. Mr Pye was published in 1953, and he later adapted it as a radio play. The BBC broadcast other plays of his in 1954 and 1956.

Related Topics:
1946 - Sark - Gormenghast - 1950 - Smarden - Kent - Central School of Art - Wallington - Surrey - Mr Pye - 1953 - BBC - 1954 - 1956

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In 1956 Mervyn and Maeve visited Spain so that Mervyn could convalesce after an illness, and the novella Boy in Darkness was published. He placed much hope in his play The Wit To Woo which was finally staged in the London's West End in 1957, but it was a critical and commercial failure. This affected him greatly -- his health degenerated rapidly and he was again admitted to hospital with a nervous breakdown.

Related Topics:
1956 - Spain - Boy in Darkness - The Wit To Woo - 1957

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By 1958 he was showing unmistakable early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease and over the next few years he gradually lost the ability to draw steadily and quickly, although he still managed to produce some drawings with the help of his wife. Among his last completed works were the illustrations for Balzac's Droll Stories (1961) and for his own poem The Rhyme Of The Flying Bomb (1962), which he had written some fifteen years earlier.

Related Topics:
1958 - Parkinson's Disease - Balzac - 1961 - 1962

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Titus Alone was published in 1959 and was revised by Langdon Jones in 1970 to remove apparent inconsistencies introduced by the publisher's careless editing.

Related Topics:
Titus Alone - 1959 - Langdon Jones

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Peake died in November 1968. His work, and the Gormenghast books in particular, became much better known and more widely appreciated after his death, and they have since been reprinted in many languages.

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Four collections of his poems were published during his lifetime; Shapes & Sounds (1941), The Glassblowers (1950), Poems & Drawings (1965), and A Reverie of Bone (1967). After his death there were two other publications, Selected Poems - Mervyn Peake (1972), and The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (1973).

Related Topics:
1941 - 1950 - 1965 - 1967 - 1972 - The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb - 1973

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