Sometimes fantasy offers us truths that reality rarely offers. A good case in point in Mervyn Peake’s “Gormenghast” trilogy, published by Overlook Press in a handsome and authoritative edition that includes the first American printing of the restored text of the third book in the series. Titus Alone, Peake’s trilogy has been compared, in glowing terms, to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But the truth is it’s nothing like it. There are no hobbits or sorcerors here—only frail, flawed human beings. Nevertheless Peake’s tale delivers just as much enchantment.

One reason it is so often compared to Tolkien’s trilogy, I suspect,is because it is one of those rare works of literature that invites us into its fantastic, bygone worlds and then, before we know it, permanently alters the borders of our imagination. It is a haunting universe Peake’s trilogy inhabits—and ultimately indescribable, except in Peake’s own words.

I give a few, highly inadequate, words of advice to the solitary traveler who has not yet entered Peake’s domain. Gormenghast is filled with hundreds of eccentric characters—doddering queens, power-lusting courtiers, lusty kitchen maids up to Titus Groan himself, one of the most memorable characters in fantasy literature. But all these characters—even Titus, until the end—are dominated by one thing: Gormenghast castle.

Few works of literature have ever had a more awesome or portentous symbol—the brooding landscape in Hardy’s The Return of the Native or the whale in Moby Dick come to mind. Gormenghast castle dominates both the landscape of Peake’s world and the lives of all his characters. Filled with twisting, turning passageways, secret tunnels, and dusty chambers, the castle is a symbol of the family, of the home, and of modern society’s dominant institution of authority: the State. Like so many people lost in the castle’s depths, and to the reader, Gormenghast begins to seem like the universe itself, the only world there is.

But Titus Groan refuses to accept the castle’s authority. Although brought up to inherit the mantle of simple power, he rejects the legitimacy of his entire world, rebels, and leaves the castle.

Childhood, adolescence, adulthood—these are the three stages Titus must go through to reach full authority and self-realization, and these are the three books of Peake’s trilogy. In Titus Groan (childhood), the castle is Titus’ home. His family, accepted unconsciously only because he is too young to know better. Imagine the low camera angles and childish perspective of E.T. carried to even greater extremes, and you will anticipate the psychic perspective carried through stylistically, and magnificently, by Peake’s prose. By Gormenghast (adolescence), Titus has explored the castle. He has learned enough to question, and to rebel. In brilliant variations, Titus sees through the sham of the castle, which has become, to the older mind, a symbol of society’s political struggles and conspiracies. But Titus refuses to be a slave—or a master. He chooses his own independence and individualism, and leaves the castle, his home, his family, to explore the wider world.

In Titus Alone, Titus becomes that rare thing, an adult human being, who has the wisdom to live his life for his own sake, while respecting the rights of others to live as they choose.

In many ways, libertarianism is simply the politics of adulthood. Unfortunately most religious and ethical value systems have remained stuck in childhood—blind obedience to authority—or adolescence—confused rebellion against authority. That’s why fiction, and especially coming-of-age fiction, can be literally invaluable to our own coming-of-age. When its images can give us a visceral, subtle appreciation, in transmuted form, of quests and challenges that we ourselves face in less obvious horrors but still heroic terms, in our own maturation, good fantasy is like nothing else.

That’s why, paradoxical as it may seem, good fantasy can help a child grow up and face reality, and why great fantasy fiction—like Peake’s trilogy—is best appreciated by adults.