Titus Groan first catalyst is the birth of Titus Groan, the heir to Lord Sepulchrave, which interrupts the centuries-old daily rituals which are practiced at all levels of the castle's society, from the kitchens to the Hall of Bright Carvings in Gormenghast's upper reaches. Though he is the title character and integral to the plot, Titus appears only infrequently as an infant during his first two years of life. The second is Steerpike, a ruthlessly ambitious kitchen boy, whose rise drives the plot of "Titus Groan". His escape from the kitchen during the castle celebration of Lord Titus' birth introduces change into
Maeve Gilmore Alone", the third novel in his series of Titus books, following "Titus Groan" (1946), and "Gormenghast" (1950), only with difficulty. When published in 1959 "Titus Alone" was less polished than he might have wished, but he was beyond correcting it. He had always planned a longer series, taking his hero up to his forties at least. On his death from Parkinson's disease in November 1968, Peake left a few pages of notes for a fourth book, of which fewer than a thousand words are legible. During the 1970s, Gilmore worked on the fourth Titus book herself, inspired partly by the