Balaclava: 60 Limericks is a collection of Edward Gorey’s delightfully macabre and absurdist verse, accompanied by his signature pen-and-ink illustrations. True to Gorey’s gothic whimsy, these limericks—each adhering to the classic AABBA rhyme scheme—spin tales of misfortune, eccentricity, and dark humor, often ending with a grim or surreal twist.
The limericks feature a cast of doomed aristocrats, hapless scholars, and peculiar creatures, all rendered in Gorey’s meticulous crosshatched style. A typical entry might describe a “young lady named Maude” who is “carried off by a squid,” or a “professor of Greek” who “vanished one day in a freak.” The tone balances between Victorian propriety and gleeful morbidity, with each five-line poem offering a self-contained tragedy or bizarre anecdote.
Balaclava showcases his mastery of economy—each limerick is a miniature story, dense with implication and irony. The title itself, referencing the Crimean War’s Battle of Balaclava (and perhaps its infamous “Charge of the Light Brigade”), hints at the collection’s themes of futile heroism and historical absurdity.
“Gorey’s limericks are like epitaphs for lives that never were—and yet somehow were, in the shadowy corners of his imagination.” — The New Yorker
![A.A. Milne - When We Were Very Young 1924. First edition [1]](https://www.nocloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/aam-young1-300x400.jpg)
