Editing Mervyn Peake (section)

==Early life==
Mervyn Peake was born of British parents in [[Guling, Jiangxi|Kuling]] located on top of [[Mountain Lu|Mount Lu]] in [[Jiujiang]] in 1911, only three months before the revolution and the founding of the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. His father, [[Ernest Cromwell Peake]], was a [[Medical missions in China|medical missionary]] doctor with the [[London Missionary Society]] of the [[Congregational church|Congregationalist tradition]], and his mother, Amanda Elizabeth Powell, had come to China as a missionary assistant. Ernest and Amanda met in July 1903 at [[Kuling, Jiujiang|Kuling]] (from the English word "cooling"), a summer European missionary resort in [[Mount Lu]] about the Yangtze River in [[Jiujiang]]. They got married in Hong Kong in December of that same year.<ref name="Mervyn">{{cite book|last1=Winnington|first1=Peter G.|title=Vast Alchemies: The Life and Work of Mervyn Peake|date=2000|publisher=Peter Owen|location=London|isbn=0720613418}}</ref>

The Peakes were given leave to visit England just before [[World War I]] in 1914 and returned to China in 1916. Mervyn Peake attended [[Tianjin|Tientsin]] Grammar School until the family left for England in December 1922 via the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]]. He would later write a novella about this time, titled ''The White Chief of the Umzimbooboo Kaffirs''. Peake never returned to China but it has been noted that Chinese influences can be detected in his works, not least in the castle of Gormenghast itself, which in some respects echoes his birthplace [[Kuling, Jiujiang|Kuling]], the ancient walled city of [[Beijing]], as well as the enclosed compound where he grew up in [[Tianjin]].{{citation-needed|date=August 2024}} It is also likely that his early exposure to the contrasts between the lives of the Europeans and of the Chinese, and between the poor and the wealthy in China, also exerted an influence on the Gormenghast books.{{citation-needed|date=August 2024}}

His education continued at [[Eltham College]], [[Mottingham]] (1923–29), where his talents were encouraged by his English teacher, Eric Drake. Peake completed his formal education at [[Croydon College|Croydon School of Art]] in the autumn of 1929, and then from December 1929 to 1933 at the [[Royal Academy Schools]], where he first painted in oils. By this time he had written his first long poem, ''A Touch o' the Ash''. In 1931, he had a painting accepted for display by the [[Royal Academy]] and exhibited his work with the so-called "[[Soho]] Group".