Titus Groan

Dreamlike and macabre, Mervyn Peake's extraordinary novel Titus Groan--first in the Gormenghast Trilogy--is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern fiction. Introduction by Anthony Burgess As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Meanwhile, far away and in the kitchen, a servant named Steerpike escapes his drudgework and begins an auspicious ascent to power. Inside of Gormenghast, all events are predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time--and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. His inventiveness, his ingenuity, and his humor are astonishing. --San Francisco Chronicle