The Mervyn Peake Archive

Mervyn Peake (1911 - 1968)

British Library

1940-1960s

The Peake Archive of drawings, poetry notebooks and manuscripts greatly strengthens and complements the Library's existing post-war literary holdings and will enable scholars to take forward research on Peake's work. Mervyn Peake is best-known as the author of Gormenghast which ranks as one of this century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing. Throughout his life, he illustrated a number of children's books and classic texts, including Treasure Island, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. His illustrations form a significant portion of this archive and highlights include the complete set of original drawings and illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice books (see main illustration) and the Gormenghast notebooks.

• Medium: pen & ink on paper
• Dimensions: various
• Art Fund Grant: £100000 ( Total: £400,000; Tax Remission)
• ArtFunded in: 2010
• Vendor: Through Sotheby's

Provenance

The Peake estate through Sotheby's.

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