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The Gormenghast Novels (Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus Alone) Anthony Burgess, Mervyn Peake, Quentin Crisp
Publisher: Overlook Press

A spectacular example of “the-one-that-got-away” is Mervyn Peake (1911-68), English poet, illustrator and deviser of the gothic Gormenghast Trilogy. The first two books in the series are Titus Groan and Gormenghast. The illustration by Peter Harding is obviously quite excellent:. I was drawn to these books as a teen by the cover of the 1986 Methuen edition of Titus Groan . Of those five, 2 are part of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. Peake, the son of medical missionaries to China, wrote of the ancient, gargantuan Gormenghast Castle inhabited by the mad Groan family and the subsequent birth and adventures of its royal heir, Titus Groan Titus. Recently I completed Titus Alone, the third book in what is often called the Gormenghast Trilogy, although “trilogy” is not really accurate. To his dismay (and the delight of future readers), he was turned down and drafted into the Army instead, where he began writing “Titus Groan,” the first of the Gormenghast books. The Gormenghast series has seen several adaptations for various media, with one of the most memorable being a TV miniseries co-produced by the BBC and WGBH Boston in 2000. It was published in 1946, followed by “Gormenghast” in 1950 and “Titus Alone” in 1959. A series by Mervyn Peake made of the novels Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone and the lesser-known novella "Boy In Darkness", which take place sometime before the second book.