Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “Titus Groan” by Mervyn Peake (Gormenghast 1)

The fifth essay in my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, which looks at Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan (1946): an atmospheric, richly wrought novel about power and social hierarchy in a castle populated by absolute weirdos, and how it all starts to crack up.