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.
Boy in Darkness Boy in Darkness Boy in Darkness is a novella written by Mervyn Peake. It was first published in 1956 by Eyre & Spottiswoode as part of the anthology "Sometime, Never: Three Tales of Imagination" (with other stories by William Golding and John Wyndham). A corrupt version of "Boy in Darkness" was published both in an anthology, "The Inner Landscape" (1969), and separately in 1976 with an introduction by Peake's widow, Maeve Gilmore. Referring to the corrupt text, she wrote that "although the Boy in "Boy in Darkness" is assuredly Titus Groan, [Peake] did not call him so by name"; however,