From the archives – the genius of Mervyn Peake

It is Mervyn Peake’s centenary this week and there have been parties thrown in his honour across the country. Gormenghast lours over this revelry, as if a still breathing creation has outgrown its dead creator. This seems only natural: Anthony Burgess once described the Gormenghast trilogy as one of the ‘most important works of the imagination to come out of this age’. It is the archetypal cult classic that has obtained a permanent eminence. Yet it was not always so. The books were noticed when first printed, but without ceremony. Indeed, the Spectator did not review a single one of the trilogy when they were released. The magazine reviewed the reprints that were issued in the late sixties, around the time of Peake’s final degeneration towards death from Parkinson’s disease. Below is the Spectator’s review of Tiutus Groan – the first of the trilogy, originally published in 1946.

His nibs by Henry Tube, The Spectator, 26 January 1968.