Monday, July 11, 2011

Mervyn Peake, 1911-1968


Saturday 9th July 2011, marked the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great author and illustrator, Mervyn Peake.
If you are unfamiliar with Peake's work, there are some great publications and exhibitions happening now to coincide with his centenary.
And the BBC are doing a new Radio presentation of Gormenghast which you can listen to on the BBC iPlayer.
I was fascinated by Peake and Gormenghast since I was given a gift of the trilogy of books when I was a student. Years later, I was thrilled when I was selected by the Peake family to be the artist who would illustrate Boy in Darkness, a novella described as a "fragment from Gormenghast."
Below is my cover artwork for the book.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is great! I've always been intrigued by Gormenghast but never actually got around to reading it.

PJ Lynch said...

Thanks Aladine
It's a very dense read, but I would say you'd enjoy it. The radio play on iPlayer will certainly give you a very good flavour of the books.
All the best
PJ