"Boy in Darkness," Sometime, Never (1956)
Quotes from book
Boy in Darkness
Boy in Darkness is a novella written by Mervyn Peake. It was first published in 1956 by Eyre & Spottiswoode as part of the anthology Sometime, Never: Three Tales of Imagination . A corrupt version of Boy in Darkness was published both in an anthology, The Inner Landscape , and separately in 1976 with an introduction by Peake's widow, Maeve Gilmore. Referring to the corrupt text, she wrote that "although the Boy in Boy in Darkness is assuredly Titus Groan, [Peake] did not call him so by name"; however, adding the name Titus was one of the specific changes that Peake made between writing and publishing his novella. The correct text has recently become available again in an anthology entitled Boy in Darkness and Other Stories, with a foreword by Joanne Harris and a preface by Peake's son Sebastian, as well as Maeve Gilmore's uncorrected introduction from 1976.