Enter the world of Gormenghast...the vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. Gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old rituals, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder.

Gormenghastis more than a sequel toTitus Groan -it is an enrichment and deepening of that book.The fertility of incident, character and rich atmosphere combine in atour de forcethat ranks as one of the twentieth century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.

Mervyn Peake was born in 1911 in Kuling, Central Southern China, where his father was a medical missionary. His education began in China and then continued at Eltham College in South East London, followed by the Croydon School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. Subsequently he became an artist, married the painter Maeve Gilmore in 1937 and had three children.During the Second World War he established a reputation as a gifted book illustrator forRide a Cock Horse(1940),The Hunting of the Snark(1941), andThe Rime of The Ancient Mariner(1943). Other books includeAlice's Adventure's in Wonderlandand Grimm'sHousehold Tales(both 1946) andTreasure Island(1949).

Titus Groanwas published in 1946, followed in 1950 byGormenghast. Among his other works areShapes and Sounds(1941),Rhymes Without Reason(1944),Letters from a Lost Uncle(1948) andMr Pye(1953).Titus Alonewas published in 1959. Mervyn Peake died in 1968.