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The Gormenghast Trilogy
The Gormenghast Trilogy
Jan 1, 2025 9:15 AM

Author:Mervyn Peake

The Gormenghast Trilogy

ENTER THE CRUMBLING WORLD OF GORMENGHAST...

'A modern classic' Anthony Burgess

'A gorgeous volcanic eruption... A work of extraordinary imagination'

New Yorker

'A perfect creation' Neil Gaiman

Gormenghast is the vast, crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is lord and heir. Titus is expected to rule this gothic labyrinth of turrets and dungeons (and his eccentric and wayward subjects) according to strict age-old rituals, but things are changing in the castle. Titus must contend with treachery, manipulation and murder as well as his own longing for a life beyond the castle walls.

'Peake's books are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before' C. S. Lewis

Reviews

A master of the macabre and a traveller through the deeper and darker chasms of the imagination

—— The Times

Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It [The Gormenghast Trilogy] is a very, very great work...a classic of our age

—— Robertson Davies

[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience

—— C. S. Lewis

The Gormenghast Trilogy is one of the most important works to come out of the age that produced The Four Quartets, The Unquiet Grave, Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four

—— Anthony Burgess , Spectator

Kawabata's novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time

—— The New York Times Book Review

Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible

—— Commonweal

He will continue to glitter, this strange, lonely prospector in the universe of words, well into the next millennium and after, a master in the empire of the imagination

—— Independent

A writer of dizzying ambition and variety, each of his stories is a fresh adventure into the possibilities of fiction

—— Guardian

This set of interweaving short stories is a perfect way to get a more bite-sized read... There's a story in here that everyone can relate to

—— Woman & Home

The inimitable author of The Handmaid's Tail is spectacular at short stories

—— i

Atwood...writes infectiously... page after page proving that...[her] lavish literary talents remain wholly undiminished

—— Reader's Digest

[Old Babes in the Wood] showcase[s] Atwood's spiky wit and imagination

—— Sunday Express

The 15 stories in this collection from the stellar Margaret Atwood are book-ended by the touching, tender, grief-tinged tales of Tig and Nell

—— Eithne Farry , Daily Mail

There are authors we turn to because they can uncannily predict our future; there are authors we need for their skillful diagnosis of our present; and there are authors we love because they can explain our past. And then there are the outliers: those who gift us with timelines other than the one we're stuck in, realities far from home. If anyone has proved, over the course of a long and wildly diverse career, that she can be all four, it's Margaret Atwood . . . Long may she reign

—— New York Times Book Review

As affecting as any of Atwood's strongest work

—— Wired

In Old Babes in the Wood, Margaret Atwood delivers her signature sci-fi with a human heart. It is a story collection that teems with playfulness and invention... reminding us of her skill in the short form

—— Emily Watkins , i

A highly personal collection

—— Lisa O'Kelly , Observer

The Tig and Nell stories... are subtle and poignant, written in grief and from the heart

—— The Oldie

Devastating and thought-provoking in equal measure, you will find yourself thoroughly entertained - and we're sure you'll return to these again and again

—— Glamour

Atwood brings her trademark wit and invention to bear on subjects as diverse as a pandemic, cancel culture, female friendship, witchcraft - and cats

—— Observer

Old Babes in the Wood... [is] a clear demonstration of her prevailing skill as a writer

—— Arts Desk

As her short story collection Old Babes in the Wood debuts at the top of the fiction chart, Margaret Atwood can rest assured that she has reached literary legend status. It was one thing for The Handmaid's Tale to make it to No 1, but quite another for stories narrated by snails and aliens to do it

—— The Sunday Times

Her latest collection of short stories... proves once again she's also an impassioned observer of everyday people and their struggles, with a hilarious sense of humour

—— RTE *Book Of The Week*

Each [story] is interesting in its own right...Atwood's imagination and mastery of storytelling is evident

—— UK Press Syndication

[A] writer who is still so sparky and brilliant in the sudden ways she tips you into despair or delight. Whatever she's up to, I'll take more if it's going

—— Alys Key , Spectator

Quietly devastating

—— Suzi Feay , The Tablet

Any new publication by the estimable Atwood...is an event and this collection of 15 short stories is no exception

—— Evening Standard

Bracing, darkly funny and cheerfully unsentimental

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

[A] masterclass in writing about the edges of everyday life. This collection of short stories that all link to the Sunshine State captures loneliness, alienation, abandonment and inner resourcefulness in the most creative of tales.

—— Victoria Sadler

Fantastical tales ... You'll be swept up in a wild hurricane of a ride with this lyrical stories of fury and love, loss and hope.

—— Newsweek

Each story is perfectly formed, exquisite, often troubling but there is something so brilliantly humane about her work.

—— Kate Hamer, Wales Art Review
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