Synopsis
The works of Mervyn Peake have fascinated readers for sixty years. His Gormenghast sequence of novels – recently serialized to great acclaim by the BBC – stands as one of the great imaginative accomplishments of twentieth-century literature. In The Voice of the Heart, G. Peter Winnington, the world’s foremost expert on Peake, sets his subject’s fiction in context with the poetry, plays and book illustrations which are less well known. He traces recurrent motifs through Peake’s works (islands, animals, and loneliness, for example) and explores in detail Peake’s long-neglected play, The Wit to Woo. Through close readings of all these elements of Peake’s oeuvre, Winnington is ultimately able to offer unparalleled insight into one of British literature’s most vibrant imaginations.

'A remarkable portrayal of a creative mind at work, which should be recognized as making a significant contribution to our understanding of the creative process itself and of the relationship between one art form and another.… Everyone who admires Peake’s work will be delighted by this book; and from now on, nobody who writes about Peake will be able to do so without paying it homage.'
Peake Studies

In this thorough study of Peake's work Winnington’s argument is clear and persuasive, and his discussions of Peake’s interest in eyes, voices and quasi-animals (slippery in terms of species and gender) are suggestive. '
Times Literary Supplement

Liverpool English Texts and Studies 48

50 b/w illustrations

288pp, 234 x 156mm, limp

Published September 2006