Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) was a prolific and astonishingly original writer and artist, who touched at one time or another on almost every literary form. To celebrate the centenary of Peake’s birth, the British Library’s exhibition The Worlds of Mervyn Peake (5 July – 18 September 2011) examines Peake’s output as novelist, poet, playwright and illustrator through the worlds he inhabited, both real and imagined.

The exhibition brings together a wealth of material from the British Library’s collections, including the recently acquired Mervyn Peake archive. Previously unknown works discovered amongst Peake’s papers include: the manuscript of the soon-to-be published fourth Titus book, Titus Awakes, completed by Peake’s wife Maeve Gilmore after his death; and the complete first scene of his sci-fi play Isle Escape, in which a couple escape to a tropical island to wait out a world war that they later discover failed to take place.

Other highlights include:

• §  Gormenghast notebooks beautifully illustrated with character drawings of the Prunesquallors, Flay and Barquentine
• §  Peake’s original drawings for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
• §  A letter home to his wife from Germany in 1945, where Peake attended the war crimes trial of Peter Back and visited Bergen-Belsen as war correspondent for The Leader magazine
• §  ‘Just a Line’, a storyboard for an animated television program in which an ordinary little line transforms into pirates, princesses and other strange sights as it journeys across the screen
• §  ‘The White Chief of the Umzimbooboo Kaffirs’ the earliest surviving story by Peake, written when he was eleven years old on his return from China where he had spent the first part of his life
• §  Correspondence from Dylan Thomas, Graham Greene and C S Lewis.

Zoë Wilcox, Curator of The Worlds of Mervyn Peake exhibition, said:

“I hope this exhibition will encourage visitors to look beyond the label of “gothic fantasy”, which Peake so disliked, to see a man who had a profound understanding of humanity and a wicked sense of fun. Mervyn Peake’s archive was recently acquired by the British Library and this has provided a wealth of material for the exhibition, which focuses on the real places that inspired Peake’s imaginary worlds. As befits a master of nonsense, there are plenty of quirks: you can discover why Peake hated camels, had trouble with geraniums and nearly lost face over the purchase of a palm tree.”

For more information, please visit: www.bl.uk/peake

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake is open from 5 July to 18 September 2011 in the Folio Society Gallery at the British Library. Admission is free.

Exhibition book :

Peake’s Progress: Selected Writings and Drawings of Mervyn Peake

Peake’s Progress is a selection, compiled by his widow, Maeve Gilmore, from every period of his work as a writer and draughtsman. It contains a remarkable work from childhood, ‘The White Chief of the Umzimbooboo Kaffirs’, the early ‘Mr. Slaughterboard’, which foreshadows the ‘Titus’ books, two plays, ‘The Wit to Woo’ and ‘Noah’s Ark’, a broadcast version of ‘Mr Pye’, and a generous selection of Peake’s short stories, poems and nonsense verses as well as his drawings. Including a new preface written by Mervyn Peake’s son, Sebastian, this edition of Peake’s Progress is published to coincide with the centenary of Peake’s birth, and to mark the British Library’s acquisition of Peake’s archives.

Hardback £25 (ISBN 978 0 7123 5834 7), 592 pages, 229 x 155mm, 75 black and white illustrations. Available from www.bl.uk/shop (T +44 (0)20 7412 7735 / email <a title=”bl-bookshop@bl.uk” href=”mailto:bl-bookshop@bl.uk”>bl-bookshop@bl.uk).

There’s a wealth of information about Peake, who died at 57 from Parkinson’s, on his son Sebastian’s excellent blog about the author and illustrator.