by Mervyn Peake
Although you may not understand it 22
An angry cactus does no good 188
An old and crumbling parapet 196
Ancient Root O Ancient Root 44
Around the shores of the Arrogant Isles 78
Beard of my chin, white product of my jaw 26
‘Come, break the news to me, Sweet Horse 200
Come, flick the ulna juggler-wise 154
‘Come, sit beside me dear,’ he said 60
Crown me with hairpins intertwined 220
Dear children, what a day it’s been! 90
Deliria was seven foot five 110
Fish or fowl, it’s all the same 194
Footfruit, a healthy, happy man, crosses the border 208
Give me food ’n’ drink ’n’ fun 53
He must be an artist… 29
Hold fast 120
How fly the birds of heaven save by their wings? 191
How good it is to be alone (1) 71
How good it is to be alone (2) 73
How otherwise can I unfold myself 217
How white and scarlet is that face! 157
I always cast a Mental Wreath 23
I cannot give the Reasons 189
I cannot give you reasons 115
I cannot simply stand and watch 58
I have my price: it’s rather high 204
I married her in green 50
I must begin to comprehend 122
I saw a camel sit astride 96
I saw a Puffin 21
I watched a camel sit astride 63
I waxes, and I wanes, sir 100
In ancient days, oh in ancient days 176
It is most best 198
‘It worries me to know,’ she cried 161
Jehovah, Jehovah 205
Lean sideways on the wind, and if it bears 186
Leave the stronger 193
Linger now with me, thou Beauty 48
Little spider 161
Look! 211
Mine was the One. Mine was the two 65
My Uncle Paul of Pimlico 86
Never look eager, friends 182
Never mind 183
O here it is! and there it is! 158
O keep away 178
O little fly! delightful fly! 191
O love, O death, O ecstasy 127
O’er seas that have no beaches 167
Of pygmies, palms and pirates 186
Oh, Hat that cows the spirit! 30
Oh why is Streatham Common 23
Once upon a time there was a Rhino 170
Once upon the Banks of a Green Stream 169
Our Ears, you know, have Other Uses 92
Over the pig-shaped clouds they flew 200
Pretty heart be quiet, then 184
Richly in the Unctuous Dell 174
Roll them down 108
Sally: O darling when a story’s done 179
Sensitive, Seldom and Sad are we 106
She. 69
She stared at him as hard as she 203
‘Shrink! Shrink!’ said I 195
Simple, seldom and sad 47
Snobbery S’Norbury 23
So is it always when the hairfaced hedgerow 156
Squat Ursula the golden 138
Strangul’m, scragle’m 31
Sweet Pighead, youngest of the family 116
Thank God for a tadpole! 42
The hours of night are drawing on 198
The Jailor and the Jaguar 94
The King of Ranga-Tanga-Roon 114
The Men in Bowler Hats are Sweet! 148
The sunlight falls upon the grass 80
The sunlight lies upon the fields 64
The threads of thought are not for me 68
The threads remain, and cotton ones 123
The trouble with geraniums 202
The very nastiest grimace 102
There lived a dwarf in Battersea 37
There was a man came up to me 128
There’s nothing makes a Greenland Whale 88
Tiddle-ti-pompa 174
To our primordial calling 181
Uncle George became so nosey 113
Upon my golden backbone 76
Upon the summit of a hill 59
Whad’n earth would I do if I lived in Waddon? 23
What could be greener 24
What though my jaw be long and blue 202
When Aunty Jane 150
Where the little dunderhead 184
White mules at prayer! Ignore them. Turn to me 124
With a one, two, up! 176
Ye olde Ballade concerning ye yellow dwarfe of Battersea 35
You before me 26
You can never be sure of your Birron 24
You may think that he’s rather slow 84
About the Author
MERVYN PEAKE was one of the best-loved illustrators of the twentieth century, and author of the celebrated Titus books: Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959). Born in China in 1911, he was educated at Tientsin Grammar School, Eltham College in Kent and the Royal Academy Schools. From 1935 he taught life drawing at the Westminster School of Art. After being called up in 1940 he underwent military training, but was invalided out of the army following a breakdown in 1942. He worked for a while as an official War Artist, then in 1945 travelled through Germany recording the after-effects of the war, making drawings of Nazi war criminals, POWs and the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. In 1946 he went with his family to live on the island of Sark, returning in 1949 to teach life drawing again, this time at the Central School of Art. He was awarded the Heinemann Prize by the Royal Society of Literature in 1951 for his novel Gormenghast and poetry collection The Glassblowers. His play The Wit to Woo was performed at the Arts Theatre in 1957 but did not prove a critical success, and he suffered a second breakdown after its failure. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1958, and died ten years later.
R.W. MASLEN is Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. His publications include editions of Mervyn Peake’s Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2008) and Sir Philip Sidney’s Apology for Poetry (2002), as well as books on Elizabethan prose fiction and Shakespeare’s comedies. He has also written a number of essays on Renaissance literature and twentieth-century fantasy.
G. PETER WINNINGTON is the author of an acclaimed biography of Peake, Mervyn Peake’s Vast Alchemies, and of The Voice of the Heart: The Working of Mervyn Peake’s Imagination, a major critical study of Peake’s oeuvre. The leading Peake scholar, he has also edited much of Peake’s previously unpublished writing, printing it in the periodical Peake Studies (www.peakestudies.com), which he edits.
FyfieldBooks aim to make available some of the great classics of British and European literature in clear, affordable formats, and to restore often neglected writers to their place in literary tradition.
FyfieldBooks take their name from the Fyfield elm in Matthew Arnold’s ‘Scholar Gypsy’ and ‘Thyrsis’. The tree stood not far from the village where the series was originally devised in 1971.
Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.
Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,
Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side
from ‘Thyrsis’
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2011
by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
Selection and editorial matter copyright © R.W. Maslen and G. Peter Winnington 2011
Poems and drawings by Mervyn Peake copyright © The Estate of Mervyn Peake
The right of R.W. Maslen and G. Peter Winnington to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly perfo
rmed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–969–4
Mobi ISBN 978–1–84777–970–0
The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England
