Titus Awakes

"Titus Awakes" is the editorial title applied to a novel being planned by Mervyn Peake at the time he became too ill to write, about 1960. It was to have been the fourth novel in the Gormenghast series, after "Titus Groan", "Gormenghast", and "Titus Alone". "Titus Awakes" remains unfinished, as the author succumbed to illness before the work could be completed.cite book| last = Watney| first = John| authorlink = | coauthors = | title = "Titus Awakes: Introduction" in: Titus Alone| publisher = Overlook Press| date = 1992| location = Woodstock, New York| pages = 357-358| url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0-87951-427-2]

Peake's wife, Maeve Gilmore, worked on a version of "Titus Awakes" which she named "World Without End". She died before her version of the tale was finished, though she wrote an estimated 45,000 words before her death.

In 1992, Overlook Press, American publishers of the Gormenghast series, printed the extant coherent portions written by Mervyn Peake of "Titus Awakes" at the end of "Titus Alone". This consisted of three pages in which it is clear that, although Titus has left Gormenghast castle, the castle would remain both part of Titus and important in the story. Although Peake wrote further passages, the editors were unable to decipher the remaining text.cite book| last = Watney| first = John| authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Titus Alone| publisher = Overlook Press| date = 1992| location = Woodstock, New York| pages = 362| url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0-87951-427-2]

Critical reception

This unfinished work is not well-known, even amongst Peake readers, having only been published once, and only in the United States. Mills (2005) comments on the irony of the narrator's comment that Titus would never again see Gormenghast Castle, but " [e] ven in the first proposed chapter, Titus returns in a dream to Gormenghast and the fight between Swelter and Flay."cite book| last = Mills| first = Alice| authorlink = | title = Stuckness in the Fiction of Mervyn Peake| publisher = Rodopi| date = 2005| location = | pages = 154| url = http://books.google.com/books?id=PcMKzRO1RKMC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=%22titus+awakes%22&source=web&ots=Yd7TtHObmS&sig=sz2Oy6ItyWCws5kzqV89rT9ec00&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA154,M1 | doi = | id = | isbn =9042017082] The textual repetition, present in the preadventure, was commented upon by Chris Sandow, who stated that " [t] he fragments are clearly no more than early drafts".cite web| last = Sandow| first = Chris| title = Titus Awakes| work = | publisher = | date = 2004| url = http://www.gormenghastcastle.co.uk/awakes.html| format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-08-02] However, it is not clear that the repetition is an error.

References