Titus Groan disturbed and uneasy about all that has happened, and disturbed about Steerpike's sudden rise. Yet neither is able to connect Steerpike as the cause of the tragic events, as he was their apparent saviour from the fire in the library. Soon afterwards, the “Earling” takes place, and young Titus is officially made Earl of Gormenghast. In a ridiculously elaborate ceremony on a nearby lake, little Titus holds aloft the sacred symbols of his status – the stone and ivy branch, and to the horror of observers, promptly drops them both into the lake. The scene is silent except for the
Maeve Gilmore "The Lost Book of Gormenghast". Reviewing "Titus Awakes", Michael Moorcock declared it "a fascinating, intensely personal homage", saying that Gilmore "successfully echoes the music of the originals, if not the eloquent precision of Peake's baroque style as she sends Titus on his adventure." Maeve Gilmore Maeve Patricia Mary Theresa Gilmore (14 June 1917 – 3 August 1983) was a British painter, sculptor and writer, and the wife of author Mervyn Peake. Gilmore was born in 1917 and brought up in Brixton, south London, where her father, Owen Eugene Gilmore (1862–1950), was a doctor. She was educated at a convent boarding