Mervyn Peake The serial was titled "The History of Titus Groan" and adapted all three novels written by Mervyn Peake and the recently discovered concluding volume, "Titus Awakes" completed by his widow, Maeve Gilmore. It starred Luke Treadaway as Titus, David Warner as the Artist and Carl Prekopp as Steerpike. It also starred Paul Rhys, Miranda Richardson, James Fleet, Tamsin Greig, Fenella Woolgar, Adrian Scarborough and Mark Benton among others. Sting owned the film rights to the "Gormenghast" novels for a brief period in the 1980s, during which he discussed the possibility of adapting the novels into a series of concept albums,
Mervyn Peake Republic of China. His father Ernest Cromwell Peake was a medical missionary doctor with the London Missionary Society of the Congregationalist tradition and his mother, Amanda Elizabeth Powell, had come to China as a missionary assistant. The Peakes were given leave to visit England just before World War I in 1914 and returned to China in 1916. Mervyn Peake attended Tientsin Grammar School until the family left for England in December 1922 via the Trans-Siberian Railway. About this time he wrote a novella, "The White Chief of the Umzimbooboo Kaffirs". Peake never returned to China but it has been noted