A doomed ritual lord, an emergent hero, twisted trees, glinting knives and strange creatures haunt the dark, foreboding world of Mervyn Peake.There are tears and there is strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone. And at the centre of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, Lord of Gormenghast."One of the most important works of the imagination to come out of an age that also produced "Four Quartets", "The Unquiet Grave", "Brideshead Revisited", "The Loved One", Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" - Anthony Burgess in the "Spectator"."We are constantly in touch, through him, with something far greater than ourselves" - John Watney in his introduction to "Peake's Progress".Cover Illustration: Julek Heller