Titus Alone is a novel written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1959. It is the third work in the Gormenghast trilogy. The other works are Titus Groan, and Gormenghast. With the trilogy, a fourth work, the novella Boy in Darkness, and a fifth, the fragment Titus Awakes, are often considered part of a larger "Gormenghast series". It was re-edited by Langdon Jones in 1970 using the original manuscript. Plot summary The story follows Titus as he journeys through the world outside Gormenghast Castle, having left his home at the end of the second book. Muzzlehatch and the city Titus bumbles through a desert for a time, then uses a canoe to row down the river, where the reader gets a surprise: although Gormenghast is a crumbling, medieval castle, Titus finds himself in a modern city. Skyscrapers tower and the river itself is covered in pipes, canals and fishermen. As he slips the painter on the canoe, he has his first encounter with two faceless, silent persons, ostensibly police officers. Titus is exhausted by this stage and collapses on the city's waterfront, where he is rescued by a man named Muzzlehatch, who runs a zoo and drives a shark-shaped car. When Titus has recovered, he becomes restless and leaves Muzzlehatch's home to explore the city. He comes upon various huge glass and steel buildings, and arrives at a vast circular plaza of grey marble, which he begins to cross. At the far side of the plaza is a kind of airfield where brightly coloured flying machines land and take off. One of the flying machines starts to pursue Titus and he crosses the plaza hurriedly and runs into a large building to escape. He climbs to the top of the building and observes through a skylight that a party is taking place. He watches the party, overhearing various strange and disjointed conversations, until by accident he breaks the skylight, and falls through onto the ground. Titus only avoids arrest at this stage because he is lucky enough to have landed at the feet of Juno, who is Muzzlehatch's ex-lover. Juno and Muzzlehatch (who is also at the party) hide Titus until the police are gone. Nevertheless Titus is later arrested anyway, and brought to trial before a magistrate. He only avoids being sent to an institution for offenders by Juno agreeing to be his guardian and taking him in