https://fantasticmetropolis.com/i/peake Very good
https://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/a-little-place-called-gormenghast/
from CS Lewis to Mervyn
Thank you for adding to a class of literature in which the attempts are few and the successes very few indeed. . . . to me those who merely comment on experience seem far less valuable than those who add to it, who make me experience what I never experienced before. I would not for anything have missed Gormenghast. It has the hallmark of a true myth: i.e. you have seen nothing like it before you read the book, but after that you see things like it everywhere. What one may call ‘the gormenghastly’ has given me a new Universal; particulars to put under it are never in short supply. That is why fools have (I bet) tried to ‘interpret’ it as allegory. They see one of the innumerable ‘meanings’ which are always coming out of it (because it is alive and fertile) and conclude that you began—and ended—by putting in that and no more. If they tell you it’s deuced leisurely and the story takes a long time to develop don’t listen to them. It ought to be, and must be, slow. That endless, tragic, farcical, unnecessary, ineluctable sorrow can’t be abridged. I love the length. I like things long—drinks, love passages, walks, conversations, silences, and above all, books. Give me a good square meal like The Faery Queen or The Lord of the Rings. The Odyssey is a mere lunch after all.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/09/08/wonderland/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/04/alice-wonderland-illustrations-mervyn-peake
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/15/mervyn-peake-visual-archive-acquired-by-british-library
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1981/09/27/the-fanciful-and-the-fabulous/5b672e35-2102-4128-806b-8e16f3800dab/
UKLG review of 1981 compendium Peake's Progress
"My only disappointment with the book is that it is not a selection from the very best work Peake did. To one who has not read the novels or seen Peake's magnificent illustrations to Treasure Island, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Alice in Wonderland, the narrative pieces and drawings in this volume will give an idea of his versatility and marvelous originality, but not a full realization of his solid and enduring achievement."
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07779/Mervyn-Laurence-Peake?LinkID=mp05657&role=sit&rNo=0
https://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/a-little-place-called-gormenghast/
from CS Lewis to Mervyn
Thank you for adding to a class of literature in which the attempts are few and the successes very few indeed. . . . to me those who merely comment on experience seem far less valuable than those who add to it, who make me experience what I never experienced before. I would not for anything have missed Gormenghast. It has the hallmark of a true myth: i.e. you have seen nothing like it before you read the book, but after that you see things like it everywhere. What one may call ‘the gormenghastly’ has given me a new Universal; particulars to put under it are never in short supply. That is why fools have (I bet) tried to ‘interpret’ it as allegory. They see one of the innumerable ‘meanings’ which are always coming out of it (because it is alive and fertile) and conclude that you began—and ended—by putting in that and no more. If they tell you it’s deuced leisurely and the story takes a long time to develop don’t listen to them. It ought to be, and must be, slow. That endless, tragic, farcical, unnecessary, ineluctable sorrow can’t be abridged. I love the length. I like things long—drinks, love passages, walks, conversations, silences, and above all, books. Give me a good square meal like The Faery Queen or The Lord of the Rings. The Odyssey is a mere lunch after all.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/09/08/wonderland/
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| The Prunesquallors |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/04/alice-wonderland-illustrations-mervyn-peake
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/15/mervyn-peake-visual-archive-acquired-by-british-library
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| Steerpike |
UKLG review of 1981 compendium Peake's Progress
"My only disappointment with the book is that it is not a selection from the very best work Peake did. To one who has not read the novels or seen Peake's magnificent illustrations to Treasure Island, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Alice in Wonderland, the narrative pieces and drawings in this volume will give an idea of his versatility and marvelous originality, but not a full realization of his solid and enduring achievement."
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07779/Mervyn-Laurence-Peake?LinkID=mp05657&role=sit&rNo=0
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