Gormenghast (series) a year later with his "Earling" or formal investiture as the seventy-seventh Earl of Groan, after the untimely death of his father Sepulchrave. As Titus is only an infant in this novel, he plays a minor role. The main plot therefore follows the somewhat bizarre inhabitants of Gormenghast Castle, and in particular chronicles the rise to power of Steerpike, a scheming kitchen boy. Steerpike successfully destroys the existing order of the castle by inciting the twin sisters of Sepulchrave, Cora and Clarice, to burn Sepulchrave's beloved library. This event drives Sepulchrave into madness and eventually into taking his own life.
Mervyn Peake Drawings" (1965), and "A Reverie of Bone" (1967). After his death came "Selected Poems" (1972), followed by "Peake's Progress" in (1979 – though the Penguin edition of 1982, with many corrections, including a whole stanza inadvertently omitted from the hardback edition, is to be preferred). "The Collected Poems of Mervyn Peake" was published by Carcanet Press in June 2008. Other collections include "The Drawings of Mervyn Peake" (1974), "Writings and Drawings" (1974), and "Mervyn Peake: the man and his art" (2006). A collected edition of the works, issued to celebrate Peake's centenary year, has been announced for publication by Queen