Mervyn Peake

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Steerpike in the BBC production of Gormenghast

A. In 1945 the Continental Book Company of Stockholm, Sweden, wanted to publish an English-language edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, for sale on the Continent and Scandinavia. However, they were unable to obtain permission to use the illustrations most often associated with the works, those by Sir John Tenniel. So Mervyn Peake, who was beginning to make something of a name as an illustrator of unusual ability, was asked to produce a series of drawings to accompany the text.

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Peake duly produced 66 characteristically idiosyncratic drawings, full of humour and depth. His Wonderland is truly a crazy world, much in the spirit of the stories themselves.

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Q. How do they rate against the classic illustrations by Tenniel

A. They are different, particularly in the sense that they have that darkness so often associated with all of Peake's work. He chooses to depict Alice herself less than Tenniel, preferring to see Wonderland through Alice's eyes.

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Q. Who was Mervyn Peake

A. Best known for his Titus trilogy -�Gormenghast, Titus Groan and Titus Alone -�Mervyn Peake was one of the most singular writers and artists that Britain produced in the 20th century. Born in China in 1911, to missionary parents, he worked as an artist and art teacher in Sark and London before the Second World War.

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During the 1940s he wrote the first two Titus books and forged a career as an illustrator. A trip to the recently liberated Belsen as an official artist in 1945 was an episode that profoundly affected him, and deeply influenced his subsequent writing and art. By the mid-1950s he began to show signs of�a degenerative illness that prevented him from working, and eventually killed him in 1968.

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Q. What else did he do

A. Other than the Titus books he published poetry, and his other prose works include A Book of Nonsense, Captain Slaughterbord Drops Anchor and Mr Pye. In addition to the Carroll books his work as an illustrator included editions of Bleak House, Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Swiss Family Robinson and Treasure Island.

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Q. Where can his illustrated work be seen

A. Other than in the books - and he illustrated all his own work - there is currently an exhibition of his drawings and first editions of his books at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London's West End (until 22 September 2001). Forty prints are on sale.

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Q. And the new edition of the Alice

A. Just published by Bloomsbury with an introduction by Will Self.

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By Simon Smith