‘If we went out, it often seemed that he was drunk or drugged and offence would be taken. I…resented the intelligent ones who turned their backs on him.’- Maeve Gilmore (16)

As his health deteriorated and the early stages of Parkinson’s was taking hold, as well as the effects of a nervous breakdown in 1957, Peake began to lose control of his limbs, and therefore his ability to draw precisely and to create the detailed images he had been known for. In those times little was understood about the disease and many believed that he had lost his sanity. He was shunned by the majority of society and lost respect from the literary and art circles that he once graced. Through the ignorance of the time, it was suggested he have a lobotomy and he spent time in institutions and care homes, at times not even recognising his own family.  

‘…We watched helplessly as Mervyn declined into some mysterious form of dementia, while surgeons hacked at his frontal lobes and further destroyed his ability to work and reason. The frustration was terrible. His instinctive intelligence, his kindness, even his wit flickered in his eyes but were all trapped, inexpressible. ‘It feels like everything’s being stolen,’ he said once to me. Here was an extraordinary man, his head a treasure-house of invention, poetry, characters, ideas, being destroyed from within while his genius was rejected by the literary and art world of the day.’- Michael Moorcock (17)

‘Her husband was forgotten in those days. His books were going out of print, and his drawings were never shown. No one rang up to speak to him, let alone to offer him work insisting, as I did, that the younger generation was clamouring to hear from him.’- Hilary Spurling (18)

By 1974 Peake had become a cult figure, his books were being reissued and exhibitions of his drawings were held. Most recently an adaptation by the BBC of Gormenghast in 2000, illustrates that there is still a place for his fantastical worlds in modern times. He has been a source of inspiration for many, notably Ian Miller (b.1946) an Artist, Illustrator and Writer. He recently produced images based on Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.