Gormenghast novelist from Arundel’s art goes on sale

The painting is a portrait of Peake’s mother, dated 1947. During the 1940s, Peake rented a house in Warningcamp, where his first child, Sebastian, was born and where he began writing TitusGroan, published in 1946 and the first of the three novels in the Gormenghast series, regarded as classics of 20th-century English literature.

Peake was a writer, artist and poet, and also did illustrations for books by other authors including Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, Alice in Wonderland and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as Brothers Grimm’s Household Tales.

He produced many original poems, ‘literary nonsense’, short stories for adults and children, stage and radio plays.

He also designed the logo for Pan Books.

As his reputation grew, he was commissioned to do portraits of well-known people, and he exhibited in the Sark Gallery and the Cooling Galleries, the Royal Academy, the Leger Galleries and Calmann Galleries.

Peake, who died in 1968, was named by The Times in 2008 as one of the 50 greatest writers since 1945.

The portrait of his mother, oil on board and signed and dated, is for sale at £8,000.

The Antiques Fair takes place in London and will be exhibiting until Sunday.

For more information, visit www.olympia-antiques.com