Worcestershire Literary Festival

Details of the forthcoming talk by Sebastian on 29th October.

Rounding off the Centenary Year

King's Place, the impressive new concert hall in York Way, King's Cross, will be the venue for a discussion on the life and work of Mervyn Peake. The event begins at 7pm, on 7th November. The writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, whose recent BBC Radio Four adaptation of all four of the Titus Books was very well received will interview Peake's sons, Sebastian and Fabian, in a live discussion in this the writer's centenary year.

The Lines of Flight Exhibition at The Laing Gallery

The impressive Laing Gallery in the centre of Newcastle, is the latest location for many of the illustrations of Mervyn Peake, originally shown at La Maison d'Ailleurs in Switzerland, as Lines of Flight.

In two very large galleries the work is set out against a maroon background with each set; Treasure Island, The Hunting of the Snark, Mr Pye all given ample space within which the viewer can take in the art.

The exhibition will be on until the beginning on January 2012 and is already receiving a lot of attention from both locals and from visitors from further afield. A show that fans must not miss.

Carshalton and Wallington

There will be a talk on Mervyn Peake at Carshalton Library at 7.30pm on 27th October. Entitled The Significance of the letter P, it will be given by a great Peake enthusiast, John Monks.

Another point of local interest is the plaque erected on the site of 55 Woodcote Road, Wallington, a mile away from Carshalton. Now a block of flats, this homage to Mervyn Peake is affixed to the outside of the building, on the site of what was once his father's house.

Abiatha Swelter - one of the best . . .

John Mullan, writing in The Guardian on 30th September suggests Swelter as one of the Ten Best Fat Men in Literature.