The surreal world of Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake looking over some sketches. The British Library has acquired the author's 39 Gormenghast notebooks, his complete set of original drawings for Lewis Carroll's Alice books and his personal correspondence with authors including Laurie Lee, John Berger and CS Lewis
Photograph: Raymond Kleboe/Hulton Archive

Although Peake is best known for his novels about Titus Groan, the 77th earl of Gormenghast, he also completed a set of drawings for Lewis Carroll's Alice books. Here, he shows the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, complete with March Hare, drawn in 1945
Photograph: Mervyn Peake Estate

'The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, / Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, / And burbled as it came!' Peake's take on Carroll's Jabberwocky Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

A notebook containing one of Peake's drafts for the Gormenghast novels. In 1949, the author wrote that the problem of the artist was 'to discover his language... Out of such drawings and hundreds more my own language will develop'
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

Another Gormenghast draft. The 39 notebooks acquired by the British Library show Peake's plot summaries and reflections on narrative progression, including revisions and corrections, illustrations, ink drawings, sketches of characters, decorative text borders and watercolours
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

'She went on growing and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor'. Peake's 1945 illustration of Alice, after she drinks from a mysterious little bottle. Will Self has described Peake's work on Alice as ‘arguably the best one achieved since [Tenniel’s]'
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

'The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts/ All on a summer day'. Peake's rough drawing of the Queen of Hearts from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The British Library archive includes his complete set of drawings for both Alice books, with 65 pen and ink drawings and nine preliminary sketches
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

'They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had 'Dum' embroidered on his collar, and the other 'Dee'.' Peake's rough drawing of Alice with Tweedledee and Tweedledum from Alice Through the Looking Glass
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

A notebook containing Peake's draft for the Gormenghast novels, from the 1940s. The archive also includes Peake's widow Maeve Gilmore's draft of a fourth Gormenghast novel, completed after his death but only recently discovered and lined up for publication next summer
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' Peake's illustration of the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate

'She considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish.' Peake's illustration of the Fish Footman from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1945
Photograph: Mervyn Peake estate