Titus Groan in particular Lord Sepulchrave's twin sisters, Cora and Clarice Groan. The sisters are not very bright and are power-hungry and resentful, believing that Countess Gertrude holds the position that they rightfully deserve. Steerpike manages to use the twins' ambition for his own ends. He promises them power and influence, and convinces them that they could achieve their goal by burning down Sepulchrave's beloved library. Steerpike prepares meticulously for the act of arson. He arranges for the burning to happen when the entire Groan family and their most important servants are inside the library for a family gathering (Steerpike intentionally failed
Maeve Gilmore list of people and places that Peake had imagined might feature in it. By 1980, she had completed a narrative she called "Search Without End". It told the story of Titus backwards – not returning to Gormenghast, but to Sark where his creator Peake had lived in the early 1930s and again between 1946 and 1949, taking in along the way some of Peake's experiences (as a Parkinsonian patient in hospital, for example). In her final version, however, she avoided mentioning any name or event from the Titus books, with the exception of the name of the hero, so that