Titus Groan the stultified Gormenghast society. Steerpike is Machiavellian in his rise, but he can also appear charming and sometimes even noble. The novel begins as the imperious and ritual-driven servant Mr. Flay seeks to tell someone new of the birth of an heir to the House of Groan in a remote part of the sprawling castle of Gormenghast. A son is born to Lord Sepulchrave, Earl of Groan and monarchical ruler of Gormenghast, and his wife, Countess Gertrude. He is named Titus and entrusted to Nannie Slagg by his indifferent mother. Nannie Slagg is an elderly, somewhat senile woman who serves
Gormenghast (castle) inner buildings of Gormenghast owe much to the Gothic and Regency period mansions and to the various styles of English country house. The quadrangles and professors' quarters also owe something to the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge and to Eltham College where Peake was educated as a boy when he returned to England. Finally, the isolated Channel island of Sark, which retained a feudal system of government until 2008, may have influenced Peake, who lived there in the early 1930s and again in the late 1940s. The references to Gormenghast castle as a rocky island of many promontories and sheer