Bookscan says that Gormenghast sold 50,000 copies between 1998 and 2011. I suspect that's an underestimate. The Lord of the Rings, according to other sources, sold 50,000,000 copies in the last ten years alone, and again that's probably an underestimate.chris_notts wrote:Possibly because Gormenghast is, if I remember correctly, quite a dull and depressing read? Of course that's subjective, but it didn't strike me as particularly inspiring compared to, say, the Hobbit. If Peake had been a better author, or at least one with a more mass-market appeal (I'm aware that some regard Gormenghast as a classic), perhaps things would be the other way round? Afterall, most authors are followers rather than trend setters, as in every other walk of life.Seven Fifty wrote:I've for a long time been fascinated by the fact that in the Gormenghast books, although they seem to fall fairly naturally in the category of "fantasy", there is an absence of magic or the magical. Specifically, it's interesting to me that more authors haven't done similar - the Tolkienian style has generated a vast slew of followers, and Peake's hardly any as far as I am aware.
EDIT: interesting question: how do Tolkien's and Peake's books compare from a sales perspective? Googling has failed to quickly find out the number of copies of the Gormenghast books sold. I only really have my own impression that far fewer people have read Gormenghast than have read Tolkien's books, but it would be good to put some numbers to it.
It may be worth mentioning as well that Tolkien was writing both in a genre, albeit a nascent one, and a literary tradition. His works were a departure from convention, but they were a departure from within convention, from an author enmeshed in the British intelligensia of his day. Peake, on the other hand, was a painter, writing in a genre he'd invented himself, and he died before he completed his series. Even leaving aside the thematic and stylistic differences between the two, it would be no surprise that Peake's work found it harder to find an audience, both among the general public and among writers.
Also worth mentioning that Peake probably wasn't aware of writing a 'fantasy' novel (as noted, there's little if any actual magic in it). Rather, his work was shoehorned into the genre by a later generation, due to the lack of anything else to compare it to. 'Gothic Revival' would probably be more accurate.
That said, it's not entirely true that Gormenghast hasn't been influential. Moorcock has always been open about its influence on him, and has helped popularise it to others; Vance and Wolfe are often spoken of as following in Peake's footsteps, and more recently M John Harrison and China Mieville.