Literary critic Harold Bloom has praised the series as the best fantasy novels of the 20th century and one of the greatest sequences in modern world literature.
At least two other books, tentatively titled Titus Awakes and Gormenghast Revisited, were planned but Parkinson's disease and Peake's ensuing death at the age of 57 prevented him from writing more than a few hundred words and ideas for further volumes.
To the North are marshy wastelands, to the South are grey salt marshes (and presumably then the ocean), to the East are quicksands and the tideless sea, and to the West are knuckles of endless rock.
East of them are escarpments described as "an irregular tableland of greeny-black rock, broken and scarred and empty", then desolate swamp before the vicinity of the castle is reached.
Some contact with the outside world is implied; Dr Prunesquallor at one point sketches an ostrich skeleton, while Steerpike procures a monkey from somewhere.
The main plot therefore follows the somewhat bizarre inhabitants of Gormenghast Castle, and in particular chronicles the rise to power of Steerpike, a scheming kitchen boy.
His desire for freedom is awakened by the sight of his foster sister, known only as "The Thing", a feral child who lives in the woods of Gormenghast (due to her mother being banished as an outcast) and who terrorizes the Bright Carvers, the inhabitants of the mud dwellings outside the castle walls.
Meanwhile, Steerpike continues his rise to power by killing Barquentine, the Master of Ritual, and taking his place, but he is eventually unmasked as a traitor and murderer.
Titus is helped by mysterious inhabitants he meets, such as Muzzlehatch, the owner of a zoo, who drives a shark-shaped car and becomes a friend and mentor.
Titus also features in another book called Boy in Darkness, which appears to take place during his youth in Gormenghast, but which is unconnected to the main story.
However, when required to use her intelligence she turns out to be one of the cleverest people in the castle, when (along with Flay and the doctor) she recognizes and investigates the worrying changes transpiring in Gormenghast.
She demonstrates unexpected leadership qualities during the flooding of the castle and hunt for Steerpike, but once those threats have passed she retreats back into her isolated world.
Her hair, a very dark red color of great luster, appeared to have been left suddenly while being woven into a knotted structure on the top of her head.
Their personalities appear indistinguishable and their combined conduct and conversation devoid of insight or intelligence — although Cora believes that she is slightly cleverer than Clarice, their thoughts and motivations run along the same lines.
Nervous, self-pitying, child-like and lacking both mental agility and emotional comprehension, her life has been spent in service to the revered mores of Gormenghast.
When called upon to perform the ceremonies accorded to her role, the combination of her reverence for the House, her intrinsic inferiority complex and simple concern for the comfort of the children render her muddled and terrfied.
With her charges, she is prone to dramas of wounded feelings but her devotion, and loving nature, means she is the only figure of affection to the young Titus and Fuschia.
Dark, almost lambent like a topaz, she is still young, her sole disfigurement the universal bane of the Outer Dwellers, the premature erosion of an exceptional beauty — a deterioration that follows with merciless speed upon an adolescence almost spectral.
Muzzlehatch is a man who drives around the city in a large shark-like car, who comes upon Titus lying faint on the waterfront and brings him home with him.
The Driver, a great, gaunt, rudder-nosed man, square-jawed, long-limbed, and muscular, appeared to be unaware of the condition of his car or of the danger to himself or to the conglomeration of characters who lay tangled among their nets in the rotting 'stern' of the dire machine.
From the full, rounded, and bell-shaped hips which swayed imperceptibly as she moved, arose the column of her almost military back; and from her shoulders sprang her neck, perfectly cylindrical, surmounted by her classic head.
After hearing Titus telling many stories of Gormenghast, she arranges a mocking pageant or parade with grotesque caricatures of the inhabitants of the castle in order to humiliate him and unhinge his mind.
In 1984, BBC Radio 4 broadcast two 90-minute plays based on Titus Groan and Gormenghast, adapted by Brian Sibley and starring Sting as Steerpike and Freddie Jones as the Artist (narrator).
It was set in a "virtual" computer-generated world created by young computer game designers, and starred Jack Ryder as "The Boy" (a teenage Titus Groan), with Terry Jones narrating.
[36] It was directed by David Glass, combining mime with melodrama and magic realism, designed by Rae Smith with music by John Eacott.
A stage version of Titus Alone was produced at the University of Sussex in 2001, using sound and physical theatre to evoke the strange world beyond Gormenghast Castle.
http://www.carabosse.org Irmin Schmidt, founder of the seminal German experimental group Can, composed a three-act opera, Gormenghast, based on the novels.
[37] A number of songs, including "Stranger Than Fiction" and "Titus" by New Zealand rock group Split Enz and "The Drowning Man" by The Cure, have been inspired by Peake's work.
[citation needed] The British progressive rock group Strawbs feature a Ford/Hudson composition called "Lady Fuschia" (sic) on their 1973 album Bursting at the Seams, about one of the protagonists of this trilogy.
Northern Irish progressive rock band Fruupp included a song called "Gormenghast", inspired by the novels, on their 1975 album Modern Masquerades.