Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels - Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone - have been read in many ways. For some of their readers, they re-state the essential message of romanticism - the assertion of the individual against conventional restraints. For others, the novels are a coming-of-age story - the story of how Titus ceases to be a child and becomes a man. Yet others interpret them as belonging to a tradition that includes Tolkien - the author of Lord of the Rings - and some later writers of science fiction.