Gormenghast

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Peake has created a world where all is like a dream-lush, fantastical, vivid, and yet symbolic of a dark struggle. At the center of everything is the seventy-seventh earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual whose origins are lost in history, and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. When Titus is crowned, he is called Child-Inheritor of the rivers, of the Tower of Flints and the dark recesses beneath cold stairways...Child-Inheritor of the spring breezes that blow in from the jarl forests and of the autumn misery in petal, scale, and wing.

Seven-year-old Titus Groan stands to inherit a crumbling castle known as Gormenghast. However, with treachery afoot, and the Byzantine government less than willing to assist the kingdom, Titus must undertake the task of restoring Gormenghast to its former glory.

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast trilogy, which reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. In this second volume, Titus comes of age within the walls of Gormenghast Castle and discovers various family intrigues. Having been "exiled" to grow up with the common children until the age of fifteen, Titus has discovered secret hiding places in the castle from where he can watch and learn unobserved. Disconnected from his future responsibilities, Titus drifts back and forth between the complicated social world he will grow up to govern and a world of fantasy and daydream.

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels, considered to be some of the greatest fantasy classics of all time. At their center is the seventy-seventh earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. In this third volume, Titus turns against the iron discipline of Gormenghast Castle, abdicating his throne and setting forth on an uncertain quest-for himself. His pilgrimage leads to encounters with mysteriously omnipotent police and a battle to the death with Veil, a fearsome ogre with a body like whips and a face that moves "like the shiftings of the gray slime of the pit." In his quest for independence from his legacy, Titus successfully captures the universal struggle to "come of age." This final installment in the Gormenghast trilogy is a fantastic triumph-a conquest awash in imagination, terror, and charm.