Boy in Darkness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Boy in Darkness" is a horror novella written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1956 by Eyre and Spottiswood as part of the anthology Sometime, Never: Three Tales of Imagination. Boy in Darkness has also been published separately in the United Kingdom. It has been out of print in the United States for decades. Boy in Darkness is pendant to the Gormenghast series, albeit one which is not well-known.

Upon publication of the work in 1956, a Glasgow Herald reviewer called it "completely hair-raising". The story was one of Mervyn Peake's final major works before his death in 1968.

Plot

The story concerns a boy (clearly Titus Groan, referred to once or twice as Titus but mostly as "the Boy"), who, yearning for freedom from his ceaseless duties as 77th Earl of Gormenghast, escapes the ancient castle and encounters the nightmare world outside the keep. It takes place during the period covered by the second novel in the series, Gormenghast.

Adaptations

Boy in Darkness was made into a short film in 2000. Created by the BBC Drama Lab, it utilized computer generated imagery and was set in a virtual world. The film starred Jack Ryder and Terry Jones.