Gorey, Edward

Edward Gorey, in full Edward St. John Gorey, (born February 22, 1925, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died April 15, 2000, Hyannis, Mass.), American writer, illustrator, and designer, noted for his arch humour and gothic sensibility. Gorey drew a pen-and-ink world of beady-eyed, blank-faced individuals whose dignified Edwardian demeanour is undercut by silly and often macabre events. His nonsense rhymes recall those of Edward Lear, and his mock-Victorian prose delights readers with its ludicrous fustiness.

After graduating from Harvard in 1950, Gorey immersed himself in the New York City cultural scene. In 1953 he began writing and illustrating short books. The Doubtful Guest (1957), his first book for children, features a penguinlike creature that moves into a wealthy home. A laudatory article by Edmund Wilson in The New Yorker magazine in 1959 drew attention to Gorey’s work, and he was soon in demand as an illustrator.

During the 1960s Gorey refined his style and started publishing under several playful pseudonyms, mostly anagrams such as Ogdred Weary, Drew Dogyear, and Mrs. Regera Dowdy. Gorey was fond of illustrated alphabets; his most celebrated is The Gashlycrumb Tinies (1962), which disposes of 26 children: “M is for Maud who was swept out to sea / N is for Neville who died of ennui.” He illustrated two books by Edward Lear, including the highly acclaimed The Dong with a Luminous Nose (1969). Gorey continued to write his own stories, including The Hapless Child (1961), The Gilded Bat (1966), and The Deranged Cousins: or, Whatever (1969).

From 1970 Gorey concentrated on adult works, although he still wrote children’s stories. His anthologies Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), and Amphigorey Also (1983) sold well; the first two volumes were the basis for a 1978 musical stage adaptation, Gorey Stories. Another collection of his stories was dramatized as The Vinegar Works and produced in 1989. Gorey’s macabre vision was appreciated across several media; he won a Tony award in 1978 for his costume design for the Broadway revival of the play Dracula, and he designed the title sequence animation for the PBS Mystery series. His later books include The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas (1997) and The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium (1999).