Dave McKean

The Making of Gormenghast

In his illustrations for the first two parts of the trilogy, Titus Groan and Gormenghast, McKean was intent on taking the reader beyond the gloomy, oppressive atmosphere of the city itself. ‘When the writer steps outside the walls and towers of the castle, the atmosphere changes, the reader really feels the difference. I suppose I have tried to do my own take on that outside world.’ Mandy Kirkby is delighted with the result. ‘Peake’s vision in the book was very character-based, leaving you to imagine the whole of the rest of Gormenghast for yourself. Now, with his illustrations, you are doing that with Dave as your guide.’

When he agreed to illustrate the books, McKean set himself two challenges. ‘I wanted to do right by the text and produce something Peake would have approved of. But, at the same time, I wanted to do something completely different with a classic that is so well-loved. That’s always a challenge, but I hope the books’ many fans will approve of the result.’

The Making of Gormenghast

The Mervyn Peake Estate was involved at every stage of the process, and was very supportive of Folio’s more creative ideas, says Gee. ‘We decided to bind the book with an open spine, the first time we have done that at Folio. It is a technical challenge as with this production method there is no chance of a dummy run – you have to print, fold and gather the whole book in order to see the title on the spine.’

McKean is always keen to surprise his audience. ‘It would have been very easy to produce another grey and gloomy cover, but that had already been done masterfully by Peake himself. I wanted a mysterious box with startling colours inside. And I had always imagined the box being covered by an intricate, labyrinth-like puzzle with crenellated turrets at its edges.’ The illustrator put his concept to Gee, who in turn put the challenge to the production team. ‘For the Limited Edition we decided on a hinged presentation box, with the detail of the maze in metallic red blocked on to grey cloth. The box shuts with a magnet, and when you flip it open the birds look as if they are ready to fly out. We haven’t done anything like it before, but the result has just blown everyone away.’

The Making of Gormenghast

‘I was initially cautious about taking on a fantasy book that had been part of my youth, but as I reread it as an older man, I realised it is more than fantasy; it’s a weird political satire about class, set in an atmospheric enclosed world of tall buildings leaning over you, lamps of intricate wrought ironwork on every corner, rather like in a medieval Italian town. And at the same time, it is a very English book, one that could only have been written as a product of the 20th century – yet still very difficult to pin down to a specific moment in time.’

What grabbed McKean most, though, was the beauty of the passages of natural history. ‘The writing is very visual. As I read, I was making notes on almost every page of what I wanted to draw. Peake describes nature in great detail and there are so many birds in the book, it felt natural to put magpies, swallows and ravens on the bindings.’

In his initial conversation with Gee, McKean discussed a maximum of seven illustrations per book in the trilogy, but he kept coming up with more ideas. ‘I just felt the books demanded the images. I drew with pencil and paper and scanned the images in myself, inserting them into the document so the words flowed around them. We ended up with about 150 in all, which is why it took forever!’

The Making of Gormenghast

‘Mandy is passionate about Gormenghast and she wanted to bring it to a fresh audience, with a new look,’ says Folio Art Director Sheri Gee. ‘By chance, I was talking to the illustrator Dave McKean about another project. As I looked at his work, I suddenly thought he would be the perfect fit for the strange world of Gormenghast.’

Not that McKean was a pushover. ‘Dave told me he was an admirer of Mervyn Peake’s work as an illustrator, but he was not a particular fan of the books when he first read them at school. But he agreed to think about it. He came back the same day and accepted, saying he liked a challenge!’

The Making of Gormenghast

It’s one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time, which is why Folio’s Mandy Kirkby knew that The Gormenghast Trilogy, Mervyn Peake’s masterpiece, was the perfect candidate for a Folio limited edition, even 40 years after she first read them.

‘I came across a piece about the books by an illustrator. In my head, Peake’s own illustrations were so much a part of the original, and I had always loved his drawings. But it got me thinking that, as he wrote so visually, perhaps it was time to produce a beautiful new edition, with a new breed of illustrator. ‘In the early 1980s, the Gormenghast books were the things to read for kids my age. . I wasn’t really into what was to become known as the fantasy novel genre, and so I really didn’t expect to like them.’ Yet Kirkby found herself utterly transported. ‘The world of Gormenghast is madly, crazily imagined, but for me that doesn’t make it a fantasy series. ‘I wallowed in the prose and the story. I particularly identified with Steerpike, a clever person trapped in a world of hierarchy and status. Well, I was a teenager!’