“Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.”

—  Mervyn Peake , book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 1 “The Hall of the Bright Carvings” (p. 9; opening words)

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Mervyn Peake photo
Mervyn Peake 91
English writer, artist, poet and illustrator 1911–1968

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“The walls of Gormenghast were like the walls of paradise or the walls of an inferno. The colours were devilish or angelical according to the colour of the mind that watched them. They swam, those walls, with the hues of hell, with the tints of Zion. The breasts of the plumaged seraphim; the scales of Satan.”

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“One of the main purposes of dreaming, therefore, is to increase man’s pleasure, which means to increase the quality of living itself.”

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“In Sparta, paintings have been taken out of certain walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden frames, and so brought to the Comitium”

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“Autumn returned to Gormenghast like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold.”

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Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 28 “Flay Brings a Message” (p. 152)

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