His ear is tuned to ‘what is beyond the noise of things’, his eye to the unseen beyond the seen.

                Russell Hoban

It is forty years since the death of Mervyn Peake (1911-68), the author of the much-loved Gormenghast novels. To mark the anniversary this first comprehensive edition of Peake’s poetry is published. It includes every black-and-white illustration he made for his verse, together with many previously unpublished drawings. Of the more than 230 poems in the collection, over 80 are printed for the first time. Robert Maslen's detailed work on the manuscripts reveals the poems as a dazzling link between the fantasy world of Gormenghast and the narrative of Peake’s own life and of the turbulent times he lived in.

Peake emerges as a compelling poet, with an acute sense of his responsibilities as an artist, passionately engaged with current events, from unemployment in the 1930s to the horrors of the London Blitz and the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. He is also a fine love-poet and a sensitive observer of the human form. Readers who love the world of Peake’s novels, and those who are new to his work, will discover here one of the great originals of the twentieth century.


Cover painting Mervyn Peake, The Glassblower. Presented to Manchester City Galleries by H.M. Government War Artist’s Advisory Committee, 1947. Cover design StephenRaw.com