InTitus Awakesthe 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 ofThe Gormenghast Trilogywill delight in.

Born in 1918,Maeve Gilmorewas a painter, sculptor and writer. She married Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast novels, in 1937 and they had three children. She is the author ofA World Away, an account of her life with Peake. Anthony Burgess wrote of that book, 'It is impossible not to be moved by Maeve Gilmore's memoir...The moral of Gilmore's exquisite and poignant book is that life is hell, but we had better be grateful for the conoslations of love and art'. She died in August 2003.

Mervyn Peakewas a playwright, painter, poet, illustrator, short story writer, and designer of theatrical costumes, as well as a novelist. Among his many books areGormenghast, Titus GroanandTitus Alone.