- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMervyn Laurence Peake
- Mervyn Peake was born on July 9, 1911 in Kiang-Hsi Province, China. He was a writer, known for Gormenghast (2000), Gormenghast and Mr Pye (1986). He was married to Maeve Gilmore. He died on November 17, 1968 in Burcot, Oxfordshire, England, UK.
- SpouseMaeve Gilmore(1937 - November 17, 1968) (his death, 3 children)
- ChildrenFabian Benedict Peake,
- Poet, novelist, painter, playwright and illustrator, best known for: 'Rhymes Without Reason', 1944; 'Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor', 1945; 'The Craft of the Lead Pencil', 1946; 'Titus Groan' (novel), 1946; 'Letters from a Lost Uncle', 1948; 'The Glassblowers' (poem) and 'Gormenghast' (novel) were awarded W.H.Heinemann Foundation Prize (Royal Society of Literature) 1950; 'Mr Pye', 1953; 'The Wit to Woo' (play), 1957; 'Titus Alone' (novel), 1959; 'The Rime of the Flying Bomb', 1962; 'Titus Groan' novel, 1967; 'A Reverie of Bone' (poems), 1967.
- Peake cited writers Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson as an influence on his writing.
- Peake designed the original logo for the publishing company Pan Books (an image of the Greek god Pan playing pipes). For his services, the publishers offered him either a flat fee of £10 or a royalty of one farthing per book. On the advice of writer Graham Greene, who told him that paperback books were a passing fad that would not last, Peake opted for the £10.
- Peake was born in Jiujiang, China in 1911, only three months before the revolution and the founding of the Republic of China.
- Peake's early years in early 20th-century China, with its art/architectural designs and culture, are noted to be an influence on his writing and artwork.
- Art should be artless, not heartless.
- How merciful a thing is man's ignorance of his immediate future! What a ghastly, paralysing thing it would have been if all those present could have known what was about to happen within a matter of seconds!
- There is something about a swarm that is damaging to the pride of its individual members.
- Other people's faults can be fascinating. One's own are dreary.
- This is a love that equals in its power the love of man for woman and reaches inwards as deeply. It is the love of a man or of a woman for their world. For the world of their centre where their lives burn genuinely and with a free flame.
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