Mervyn Peake’ s Vast Alchemies:
corrections and additions

Corrections

Page 13, last line of the first paragraph: ‘Mervyn Peake Review’ should be in italics.

Page 115: the portrait of Maeve is in fact signed, but way down to the right and not visible.

Page 203: I think there should be an endnote identifying John Grome:

John Grome was just four months older than Peake. He was born in London and educated at a public school for clergymen’s sons. He went on to study at Goldsmiths School of Art under Clive Gardiner. Then he taught English in India for nearly five years. A conscientious objector he was an ambulance driver in London during the war. In 1945 he returned to painting, renting a studio beside Peake’s in Manresa Road. Two years later he visited Italy, met the neo-realist painter Renato Guttuso and was bowled over by the postwar Italian figurative movement. Soon he made Italy his home; the Mediterranean light and landscape were a major source of inspiration. He married Mave Beadle in Rome in 1950 and remained in Italy for the rest of his life, apart from the years 1965–8 which they spent in England for the sake of their children’s education. Grome’s last public exhibition was a retrospective in Rome in 1986. He died in 2004.

Page 271 (middle): the memorial service was held at St James's Chruch in Piccadilly

That’s all for the moment.