Titus Awakes

Titus Awakes is an early working title applied to a novel planned by Mervyn Peake about 1960, before he became too ill to write. It was to have been the fourth novel in the Gormenghast series, after Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone.

Peake's own version of Titus Awakes is unfinished, as the author died in 1968 without doing any more than starting it.[1] But his widow, Maeve Gilmore, attempted to complete it, and produced two different versions of her interpretation. A reduced version was seen by a reviewer in the 1970s,[2] and what is believed to be her earlier manuscript and notes were edited and published in 2010.[3] So the fourth book exists in three different forms: a few pages of preliminary fragments published in 1992,[4] a never-published manuscript by Gilmore from the 1970s,[2] and an apparently earlier version of Gilmore's book found by her family, edited and published in 2010.[3]

  1. ^ Watney, John (1992). "Introduction". Titus Alone. Peake, Mervyn (story text). Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press. pp. 357–358. ISBN 0-87951-427-2.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Winnington was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Peake-1992 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).