Talk:Mervyn Peake

Reading the book Titus Alone atm.. It's a great read and anyone who is a fan of Peake should come help me flesh this page out. Kathleen Reinoga 05:38, 5 March 2007 (CST)

I have had a go at expanding the biographical section. Michael Forde Cayley 10:45, 26 April 2008 (CDT)

I think talk of a "trilogy" is just publisher-speak. As far as I can make out, it's just a series of which three books happen to have been more or less finished by the author's death. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

If one follows my dictionary's definition of a trilogy as three works connected by subject matter, then the three novels constitute a trilogy. If you expect a trilogy to have been planned as an artistic unity from the beginning, then I doubt whether it is the case. In publisher-speak these days "trilogy" just means a very long novel divided into three separate publications, and for all I know that may have become the dominant meaning.--Martin Wyatt (talk) 18:03, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Let me give a couple of examples of the sort of thing I'm thinking of.

1. Isaac Asimov published a series of short and medium stories in the 1940s, which were collected about 1950 in three volumes, including a new introductory story; they're commonly known as the Foundation Trilogy, and that title later appeared on the omnibus edition; a generation later he returned to the concept and wrote two sequels and two prequels
2. Terry Pratchett wrote dozens of books set in his Discworld; three of them happened to focus on the City Watch, and an omnibus of these was titled The City Watch Trilogy

Peter Jackson (talk) 16:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Two examples in the opposite direction: (a)The Lord of the Rings is a long novel published in three volumes and now gets to be called a trilogy; (b) C.J. Cherryh in the introduction to one of her Pyanfar novels explains that the economics of publishing mean that publishers hardly ever publish long novels, and demand they are divided into three, and she thanks her publisher for not obliging her to put artificial endings and beginnings to the three parts.

However, this is all getting a long way from Mervyn Peake. The ODNB describes Titus Groan as "the first in a projected series", so personally I think the word trilogy could stand, but without the capital, and without the italicisation which makes it look like part of a title. I will make this change.--Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)