Autograph Hound Saturday once more, and we enlist the services of the most maniacal collector of John Hancocks we know, none other than Brian Leno. Brian’s been updating me over the last few months on some of the autos rolling into his sanctum sanctorum. A near constant flow, kind of like Niagara Falls.
Most recent, as of today, he got a siggie from Mervyn Peake. “Of course,” Brian says, “I’d rather have one of the Gormenghast books signed but Treasure Island is right up there. The man was great.”
Peake also did interior illos for the Stevenson novel, well worth looking up. And more illos for more books.
But most of us undoubtedly like Peake most for his Gormenghast Trilogy, especially the first title, Titus Groan. Instant classic. The second, Gormenghast, is almost as good — the third, when Peake is in decline and makes the terrible decision to move Titus from the ancient sprawling castle of Gormenghast — well, I’ve never read it, just some parts. Apparently Peake planned to do a series of many books, keeping Titus away from the castle, even as memories of it somehow haunted him.
You read the books for the castle, not for Titus. Sorry, Mervyn.
A longtime quibble I can mention is that the titles of the first two masterpieces just don’t jell for me. In the first book Titus Groan, the baby Titus is born but the castle is the main character. In Gormenghast, Titus has grown up enough to take more of center stage. Titles should have been reversed.
Another thing I do when rereading the two books, when I get to the chapters in Gormenghast concerning the Feral Child who lives outside the wall — self-contained, little to do with the plot — the last couple of rereads I just skipped over them. Inside the castle is where the action plays out.
And I reread Treasure Island every now and then — RLS at his peak. Now thought to be the major source where most of our impressions of pirate life came from — walking the plank, and so on. In large part I’d think because of its huge popularity. Anything RLS borrowed, he made definitive. (Even if his description of the island seems to owe more to his stay in Monterey, California, than the Caribbean.)
Plus, some argue that we owe most of our ideas of how pirates yakked courtesy Robert Newton, playing Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film version.
Arrrrrr, it’s driving me nuts.
The Peake illustrated Treasure Island came out in 1949.
