» Edward Gorey Biography | Life, Art & Illustrated Books

Edward Gorey – American author and illustrator 1925-2000

American author and illustrator, b. 1925. As an illustrator of books for adults, Edward Gorey has a distinctive, instantly recognizable style: intricately detailed pen-and-ink drawings capture characters, fur- coated, turtle-necked, or dressed in 1920s or Edwardian garb, frozen in moments of stoicism. Somewhat Gothic and ostensibly grim, these images are usually accompanied by macabre stories of death, dread, and gore or by humorous verses detailing situations of horror. Gorey’s unique character is most pervasive in the works of which he is both author and illustrator. Though largely out of print, many of his books have been made available in the collections Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), and Amphigorey Also (1983).

Born in Chicago, Gorey attended the Art Institute of Chicago, served a short time in the U.S. Army, and received a B.A. in French from Harvard. After working in Boston at various jobs, including bookstore clerk and book jacket designer, he moved to New York in 1953 to become a staff artist at Doubleday. That same year, his first book, The Unstrung Harp, was published. It was followed by a succession of books, many of which were published under a variety of humorously anagrammatic pseudonyms such as Mrs. Regera Dowdy, Ogdred Weary, D. Awdrey-Gore, and Dreary Wodge.

Though critics and fans are apt to analyze the dark humor in his work, Gorey maintains that his stories are simply entertainments in the nonsense tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. His attraction to this genre is perhaps more evident in his work for children. In addition to illustrating a few of Edward Lear’s poems, including The Dong with the Luminous Nose (1969), Gorey wrote and illustrated The Wuggly Ump (1963), a story in verse about a group of carefree children who end up in the belly of an obscure dragonlike creature.

edward gorey on the dark side of perpetually dark — *Edward Gorey On The Dark Side Of Perpetually Dark*

Gorey’s ability to bring visual humor to a text has made him the appropriate illustrator of several collections of poetry, such as The Monster Den (1966) and You Read to Me, Til Read to You (1962), by John Ciard. His intuitive illustrations and graphic design added a narrative dimension to the witty text of Florence Parry Heide to create the award-winning The Shrinking of Treehorn (1971).

With expressive visual detail, Gorey’s line drawings add further dimension to parallel the story of an endearing, if slightly odd, only child who independently and rather ably copes with his mysterious condition of shrinking while his emotionally aloof parents carry on their trivial tasks with devout attention, ignorant of his diminishing stature. In a more traditional vein, Gorey produced illustrations for two versions of classic fairy tales: Red Riding Hood (1972), retold in verse by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, and Rumpelstiltskin (1974), retold by Edith Tarcov.

Reaching a wide audience through passions from picture books and book jackets to the theater—one of the passions that he cites as among his main influences—Edward Gorey’s work appeals to a mainstream audience as well as to devotees by bringing a lighthearted quality to dark humor.

E.K.E.

Edward Gorey Selected Bibliography - Book List
Year	Title	Publisher	Notes
1953	The Unstrung Harp	Brown & Co.
1954	The Listing Attic	Brown & Co.
1957	The Doubtful Guest	Doubleday & Co.
1958	The Object-Lesson	Doubleday & Co.
1959	The Bug Book	Looking Glass Library
1960	The Fatal Lozenge: An Alphabet	Obolensky
1961	The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Tale by Ogdred Weary	Astor-Honor
1961	The Hapless Child	Obolensky
1962	The Willowdale Handcar: Or, the Return of the Black Doll	Bobbs-Merrill Company
1962	The Beastly Baby	Fantod Press
1963	The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction	Simon & Schuster	Three volumes box set: The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, The West Wing
1963	The Wuggly Ump	Lippincott
1964	The Nursery Frieze	Fantod Press
1964	The Sinking Spell	Obolensky
1965	The Remembered Visit: A Story Taken From Life	Simon & Schuster
1966	Three Books From Fantod Press	Fantod Press	Three volumes box set: The Evil Garden, The Inanimate Tragedy, The Pious Infant
1967	The Gilded Bat	Jonathan Cape
1967	The Utter Zoo	Meredith Press
1968	The Other Statue	Simon & Schuster
1968	The Blue Aspic	Meredith Press
1969	The Epiplectic Bicycle	Dodd and Dodd, Mead & Co.
1969	The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley	Albondocani Press
1970	Three Books From The Fantod Press	Fantod Press	Three volumes box set: The Chinese Obelisks: Fourth Alphabet, Donald Has A Difficulty, The Osbick Bird
1970	The Sopping Thursday	Gotham Book Mart
1971	Three Books From The Fantod Press	Fantod Press	Three volumes box set: The Deranged Cousins, The Eleventh Episode, The Untitled Book
1972	The Awdrey-Gore Legacy	Dodd, Mead & Co.
1972	Leaves From A Mislaid Album	Gotham Book Mart
1972	The Abandoned Sock	Fantod Press
1973	A Limerick	Salt-Works Press
1973	The Lost Lions	Fantod Press
1978	The Green Beads	Albondocani Press
1975	The Glorious Nosebleed: Fifth Alphabet	Dodd, Mead & Co.
1976	The Grand Passion: A Novel	Fantod Press
1976	The Broken Spoke	Dodd, Mead & Co.
1977	The Loathsome Couple	Dodd, Mead & Co.
1979	Gorey Games	Troubadour Press	Games designed by Larry Evans
1980	Dancing Cats And Neglected Murderesses	Workman
1982	The Water Flowers	Congdon & Weed
1982	The Dwindling Party	Random House
1982	Gorey Cats	Troubadour Press	with Malcolm Whyte and Nancie West Swanber
1983	The Prune People	Albondocani Press
1983	Gorey Stories	Samuel French, Inc.
1984	The Tunnel Calamity	Putnam's Sons
1985	The Eclectic Abecedarium	Adama Books
1985	The Prune People II	Albondocani Press
1986	The Improvable Landscape	Albondocani Press
1987	The Raging Tide: Or, The Black Doll's Imbroglio	Beaufort Books
1989	Q. R. V. (later retitled The Universal Solvent)	Anne & David Bromer
1990	The Stupid Joke	Fantod Press
1990	The Fraught Settee	Fantod Press
1991	The Doleful Domesticity; Another Novel	Fantod Press
1994	The Retrieved Locket	Fantod Press
1995	The Unknown Vegetable	Fantod Press
1997	The Just Dessert: Thoughtful Alphabet XI	Fantod Press
1997	Deadly Blotter: Thoughtful Alphabet XVII	Fantod Press
1998	The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas	Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
1999	The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium	Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich