Classics Fantasy Fiction Gothic Horror Literature Novels

Gormenghast #1

The Gormenghast Novels

Name: The Gormenghast Novels
Rating: 4.03 (9883 reviews)
Author: Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake January 1, 1959

4.03 9.9k Ratings

Ongoing Status

26 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and a dazzling array of bizarre creatures inhabit the magical world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom, unless the conniving Steerpike, who is determined to rise above his menial position and control the House of Groan, has his way.

In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream – lush, fantastical, and vivid. Accompanying the text are Peake’s own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange and marvelous creatures that inhabit Gormenghast.

Also featuring:
Introductory essays by Anthony Burgess and Quentin Crisp
Twelve critical essays, curated by Peake scholar Peter G. Winnington
Fragment of the unpublished novel, Titus Awakes

Books similar to The Gormenghast Novels

The Picture of Dorian Gray

★ 4.13

Oscar Wilde

In this celebrated work, his only novel, Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.

A Clockwork Orange

★ 4

Anthony Burgess

A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

★ 4.19

H.P. Lovecraft

“H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”―Stephen King The most important tales of the godfather of the modern horror genre―a master who influenced the works of a generation of writers including Stephen King and Anne Rice―are gathered in one volume by National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates. Combining the 19th-century gothic sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe with a daring internal vision, Lovecraft’s tales foretold a psychically troubled world to come. Set in a meticulously wrought, historically grounded New England landscape, his harrowing stories explore the collapse of sanity beneath the weight of chaotic events. Lovecraft’s universe is a frightening shadow world were reality and nightmare intertwine, and redemption can come only from below. For aficionados and a new generation of 21st-century readers , Tales of H. P. Lovecraft is a classic not to be missed.

The Book of the New Sun

★ 4.24

Gene Wolfe

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est. This edition contains the first four volumes of the series.

The Lottery and Other Stories

★ 4.02

Shirley Jackson

The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.

The Stories of Ray Bradbury

★ 4.43

Ray Bradbury

Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle / introduction by Ray Bradbury--
The night --
Homecoming--
Uncle Einar --
The traveler --
The lake --
The coffin --
The crowd --
The scythe --
There was an old woman --
There will come soft rains --
Mars is heaven --
The silent towns --
The earth men --
The off season --
The million-year picnic --
The fox and the forest --
Kaleidoscope --
The rocket man --
Marionettes, inc. --
No particular night or morning --
The city --
The fire balloons --
The last night of the world --
The veldt --
The long rain --
The great fire --
The wilderness --
A sound of thunder --
The murderer --
The April witch --
Invisible boy --
The golden kite, the silver wind --
The fog horn --
The black black and white game --
Embroidery --
The golden apples of the sun --
Powerhouse --
Hail and farewell --
The great wide world over there --
The playground --
Skeleton --
The man upstairs --
Touched with fire --
The emissary --
The jar --
The small assasin --
The next in line --
Jack-in-the-box --
The leave-taking --
Exorcism --
The happiness machine --
Calling Mexico --
The wonderful ice cream suit --
Dark they were, and golden-eyed --
The strawberry window --
A scent of sarsaparilla --
The Picasso summer --
The day it rained forever --
A medicine for melancholy --
The shoreline at sunset --
Fever dream --
The town where no one got off --
All summer in a day --
Frost and fire --
The anthem sprinters --
And so died Riabouchinska --
Boys! Raise giant mushrooms in your cellar! --
The vacation --
The illustrated woman --
Some live like Lazarus --
The best of all possible worlds --
The one who waits --
Tyrannosaurus Rex --
The screaming woman --
The terrible conflagration up at the place --
Night call, collect --
The tombling day --
The haunting of the new --
Tomorrow's child --
I sing the body electric! --
The women --
The inspired chicken motel --
Yes, we'll gather at the river --
Have I got a chocolate bar for you! --
A story of love --
The parrot who met Papa --
The October game --
Punishment without crime --
A piece of wood --
The blue bottle --
Long after midnight --
The utterly perfect murder --
The better part of wisdom --
Interval in sunlight --
The black ferris --
Farewell summer --
McGillahee's brat --
The aqueduct --
Gotcha! --
The end of the beginning.

Johnny Got His Gun

★ 4.21

Dalton Trumbo

This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered - not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives...

This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome... but so is war.

Winner of the National Book Award.

The Magus

★ 4.05

John Fowles

This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game, in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.