Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Titus Groan

  • Gormenghast Trilogy
  • By: Mervyn Peake
  • Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
  • Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (457 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Titus Groan

By: Mervyn Peake
Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

The complete, unabridged audiobook of Titus Groan.

As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.

A brilliantly sustained flight of gothic imagination.

©1968 The Estate of Mervyn Peake (P)2014 Random House Audiobooks
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Titus Groan cover art
The Woman in White cover art
First and Only cover art
The Shadow over Innsmouth cover art
Elric of Melniboné cover art
Chatterton cover art
Master of Formalities cover art
Valis cover art
The Martian Chronicles cover art
The Cloud Roads cover art
Pietr the Latvian cover art
A Pelican at Blandings cover art
The Best of Cordwainer Smith cover art
The Decameron cover art
Swann's Way (AmazonClassics Edition) cover art
Cold Comfort Farm cover art

What listeners say about Titus Groan

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    261
  • 4 Stars
    119
  • 3 Stars
    49
  • 2 Stars
    16
  • 1 Stars
    12
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    303
  • 4 Stars
    69
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    5
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    241
  • 4 Stars
    89
  • 3 Stars
    47
  • 2 Stars
    22
  • 1 Stars
    12

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful visual descriptions and bizarre characters

This is my favourite book, I've read and listened to Gormenghast repeatedly. The performance is great but a few of the voices put me off and broke the magic for me in places.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb narration.

Saul Reichlin's performance is outstanding. His ability to give character to both male and female voices, young and old, (without once sinking to the cheap recourse of regional dialects) is second to none. (Based on this, I'd love to hear Reichlin read other books with multiple voices - Song of Ice and Fire, for example, the audio version of which is so irritating I returned it half way through Book 1, or His Dark Materials).
I very much hope Reichlin will be recording Titus Alone, to complete the trilogy.
If you're reading this, Saul Reichlin - congratulations, and thank you!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Utterly enchanting

One of the greatest gothic stories of C20, perfectly interpreted. Can't wait to listen to the next novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

An over descriptive, very long farce. That lacks.

I'm so glad for audio books, I would have never finished reading it. In short this is how I found the book. The characters (all of them) are not very nice, almost Dickensian, but in a more sinister way. The humour is subtle quite droll and never a belly laugh. The main character Steerpike is to be honest just manipulating the privileged morons about him. But the way its written is the hardest thing to describe. Its very verbose, over descriptive about everything, the expressions of the characters is usually very clever, sometimes humorous but always so, so long. All in all. Titus Groan is a novel that takes an eternity to tell a very simple story due to the very stylised way the author wrote the book. Written in the 50s it just wouldn't survive today, especially without audio books, me thinks.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely Brilliant

This a book like no other. It has no real plot to speak of, but a series of set pieces that move around it's weird, odd ball characters of gormenghast a dark old gothic Castle which is a character is self. Peake has created a masterpiece of imaginary fiction it feels like every word is meticulously placed and at times so poetically written. It's superbly read by Saul Reichlin who really know how to voice characters and he appears to have a great affinity with the work to do it Justice. l have both the other two books downloaded in the trilogy if you want to read something that is very hard to forget then digest, absorb and enjoy 5 🌟stars
Andrew

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An extraordinary achievement

Peake’s trilogy is a masterpiece. If you like juicy pros, then the Gormenghast trilogy is a good place to visit. The narration is masterful. I encourage anyone who may be put off by what may at first appear to be a performer getting carried away in doing ‘silly voices’ to stick with it. Saul Reichlin did his homework. Peake’s incredible powers of description furnish the attentive reader with all the clues they need to conjure the vividness of every character, including their voices. Reichlin clearly researched every character’s vocal inflections based on Peake’s own description and remains entirely consistent throughout. I bought a physical copy of the books to read alongside the narration. Just because the pros are so wonderful. Bravo!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

narrators impressions of prunesqualor irritating

read this 25 years ago. just wanted to listen to the story again...but for some reason the narrator lapses into silly voices. i would prefer a narrator not a performer and let my imigination fill in the gaps.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

It is gust so good!!!

Enjoy some of the best ever story telling by an author and reader unsurpassed (possibly)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Such a great production

Best audiobook narration I’ve ever heard. I recommend listening to this in the autumn, in candlelight, with a cup of tea.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

Very different. Spectacularly written, wonderfully voiced. The characters came to life, I enjoyed it thoroughly

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful