Instant Lives (1974) by Edward Gorey is a wickedly funny and surreal collection of faux-biographical vignettes that lampoon the tropes of Victorian and Edwardian literature, theater, and high society. Written in collaboration with illustrator Alison Mason Kingsbury, the book presents a series of absurdist “biographies” of fictional (and often preposterous) historical figures, each dripping with Gorey’s signature deadpan humor and love for the macabre.
The “lives” chronicled include eccentric aristocrats, doomed artists, and melodramatic divas—all plagued by bizarre misfortunes, nonsensical obsessions, and untimely demises. A typical entry might describe a poet who writes only in invisible ink, a composer whose masterpiece is performed posthumously by trained seals, or a noblewoman who collects her own teeth in a velvet-lined box. Kingsbury’s delicate, period-style portraits—reminiscent of old encyclopedia engravings—lend an air of faux-gravitas to the madness, making the absurdity even richer.
Gorey’s genius lies in his ability to mimic the pompous tone of 19th-century biographies while undermining them with sheer ridiculousness. The book reads like an Onion article set in a drawing room where everyone is doomed to die of obscure ailments.
“Gorey proves that history, if sufficiently twisted, becomes far more entertaining than truth.” — The New York Times Book Review
