A Celebration of the Writing and Art of MERVYN PEAKE

This Saturday, July 9, 2011 marks the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth, and an international celebration of the brilliant creator of Gormenghast in now under way.

Several new books will be published to coincide with the centenary, including Maeve Gilmore's conclusion to the Titus trilogy, Titus Awakes.

The Overlook Press is also publishing The Sunday Books, a truly remarkable collaboration featuring Peake's amazing drawings with verse by world-renowned fantasy writer (and friend of the Peake's) Michael Moorcock.

Also available this summer is a landmark edition of Gormenghast, The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy, a beautiful, definitive, clothbound edition that surpasses all previous editions.

Last week The Guardian ran a tribute to Peake with wonderful essays by Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Hilary Spurling and AL Kennedy. And The New Yorker's "Book Bench" blog recently posted a tribute and slide show celebrating Mervyn Peake's Wonderland.

And Peake fans will definitely want to visit the superb Mervyn Peake website for all the latest information and birthday events!

Overlook Author Profile: Mervyn Peake

Best known as a writer and illustrator, Mervyn Peake was born on July 9, 1911 to British parents in China and, excluding a brief visit to England, lived there for the first twelve years of his life.

Peake began his career as a painter and applied to be a war artist at the outbreak of World War II. He proposed an exhibition titled, An Exhibition by the Artist, Adolf Hitler that imagined horrific images of war as “art works” by Hitler. The proposal was turned down and Peake was conscripted into the Army.

Beyond his own work, Peake illustrated for the likes of Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Brothers Grimm, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Peake died on November 17, 1968, after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease. His work, however, has lived on in various incarnations:

His characters have been portrayed in numerous film, stage, and radio adaptations of his work by actors such as Sting, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Christoper Lee, Stephen Fry, and Terry Jones.

In 1998, the Gormenghast novels were turned into an opera, which premiered in Wuppertal, Germany.

The song “The Drowning Man,” by The Cure, was inspired by the events of Gormenghast.

Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone, which make up the Gormenghast novels, Peake’s greatest achievement, are now available from Overlook in individual volumes or in one single volume.

Bookseller's Choice: Mervyn Peake's GORMENGHAST NOVELS

Booksellers love the Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake and we proudly post this shelf-talker sent in to The Winged Elephant by Michael Fortney of the fabulous Chester County Book and Music Company in West Chester, PA. Overlook has just released the first two volumes in the classic Gormenghast fantasy series, Titus Groan and Gormenghast, in stand-alone paperback editions.