Edward Gorey

Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925–April 15, 2000) was a writer and artist noted for his wry, macabre illustrated books.

Biography

Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colorful family; his parents divorced when he was 11, then remarried when he was 27. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. His father was briefly a journalist, and his maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist. (Gorey claimed to have inherited his talents from her.) He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. Parker School. He spent 1944–1946 in the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and then attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, where he studied French and roomed with future poet Frank O'Hara.

Although he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible," Gorey studied art for one semester at the Chicago Art Institute in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator. From 1953 to 1960 he lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. In later years he illustrated many children's books by John Bellairs, as well as books in several series begun by Bellairs and continued by other authors after his death.

His first independent work, The Unstrung Harp, was published in 1953. He also published under pen names that were anagrams of his first and last names, such as "Ogdred Weary."

Gorey's illustrated (and sometimes wordless) books, with their vaguely ominous air and ostensibly Victorian and Edwardian settings, have long had a cult following. However, Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980, and his designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design and was also nominated for Best Scenic Design.

The settings and style of Gorey's work have caused many people to assume he was British; in fact, he never visited England, and almost never traveled. In later years, he lived year-round in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, where he wrote and directed numerous evening-length entertainments, often featuring his own papier-mâché puppets, in an ensemble known as La Theatricule Stoique. His major theatrical work was the libretto for an "Opera Seria for Handpuppets," The White Canoe, to a score by the composer Daniel James Wolf. Based on the Lady of the Lake legend, the opera premiered posthumously. On August 13, 1987, his play "Lost Shoelaces" premiered in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In the early '70s, Gorey wrote an unproduced screenplay for a silent film, The Black Doll.

Gorey was noted for his fondness for ballet (for many years, he religiously attended all performances of the New York City Ballet) and cats, of which he had many. Both figure prominently in his work. His knowledge of literature and films was unusually extensive, and in his interviews, he named as some of his favorite artists Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Francis Bacon, George Balanchine, Balthus, Louis Feuillade, Ronald Firbank, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, Robert Musil, Yasujiro Ozu, Anthony Trollope, and Johannes Vermeer. Gorey was also an unashamed pop culture junkie, avidly following soap operas and TV comedies like Petticoat Junction and Cheers, and he had particular affection for dark genre series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Animated Series and The X-Files; he once told an interviewer that he so enjoyed the Batman series that it was influencing the visual style of one of his upcoming books. Gorey treated TV commercials as an artform in themselves, even taping his favorites for later study. But Gorey was especially fond of movies, and for a time did regular and very waspish reviews for the Soho Weekly under the name Wardore Edgy.

Although Gorey's books were popular with children, he did not associate with children much and had no particular fondness for them. Gorey never married, professed to have little interest in romance, and never discussed any specific romantic relationships in interviews. In the book "The Strange Case of Edward Gorey," published after Gorey's death, his friend Alexander Theroux reported that when Gorey was pressed on the matter of his sexual orientation, he said that even he wasn't sure if he was gay or straight. When asked what his sexual preferences were in an interview, he said, "I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly. I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed or something... I've never said that I was gay and I've never said that I wasn't... What I'm trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else..." It is possible that Gorey was asexual. Theroux paints a portrait of a man who lived a fairly solitary existence by choice, friendly, generous and apparently comfortable with strangers, but strongly preferring to be alone most of the time.

From 1996 to his death in April 2000, the normally reclusive artist was the subject of a direct cinema-style documentary directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films. This has yet to be released. His Cape Cod house is called Elephant House and is the subject of a photography book entitled Elephant House: Or, the Home of Edward Gorey, with photographs and text by Kevin McDermott. The house now serves as a gallery and museum of sorts.

Gorey's work defies easy classification. He is typically desribed as an illustrator, but this merely scratches the surface. His combination of words and pictures has led some to classify him as a cartoonist, while others regard him primarily as a writer who drew, or an artist who wrote. His books can be found in the humor and cartoon sections of major bookstores, but books like The Object Lesson have earned serious critical respect as works of surrealist art. His endless formal experimentations - creating books that were wordless, books that were literally matchbox-sized, pop-up books, books entirely populated by inanimate objects, etc. - complicates matters still further, and then there's the thorny issue of whether his books are best classed as literature for children or adults. As Gorey told interviewer Richard Dyer, "Ideally, if anything were any good, it would be indescribable."

Books

Gorey wrote more than 100 books, including:

The Unstrung Harp, 1953
The Doubtful Guest, 1957
The Object-Lesson, 1958
The Fatal Lozenge, 1960
The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Tale by Ogdred Weary, 1961
The Hapless Child, 1961
The Willowdale Handcar: Or, the Return of the Black Doll, 1962
The Beastly Baby, 1962
The Gashlycrumb Tinies, 1963
The Insect God, 1963
The West Wing, 1963
The Gilded Bat, 1967
The Epiplectic Bicycle, 1969
The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley, 1969
The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, 1972
The Glorious Nosebleed, 1975
The Listing Attic, 1975
The Prune People, 1983
Gorey Stories, 1983
The Stupid Joke, 1990
The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas, 1997
The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation for the False Millennium, 1999
The Other Statue, 2001

Many of Gorey's works were published obscurely and are difficult to find (and priced accordingly). However, the following four omnibus editions collect much of his material. Because his original books are rather short, these editions may contain 15 or more in each volume.

Amphigorey, 1972 (ISBN 0399504338) - contains The Unstrung Harp, The Listing Attic, The Doubtful Guest, The Object-Lesson, The Bug Book, The Fatal Lozenge, The Hapless Child, The Curious Sofa, The Willowdale Handcar, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, The West Wing, The Wuggly Ump, The Sinking Spell, and The Remembered Visit
Amphigorey Too, 1975 (ISBN 0399504206) - contains The Beastly Baby, The Nursery Frieze, The Pious Infant, The Evil Garden, The Inanimate Tragedy, The Gilded Bat, The Iron Tonic, The Osbick Bird, The Chinese Obelisks (bis), The Deranged Cousins, The Eleventh Episode, Untitled Book, The Lavender Leotard, The Disrespectful Summons, The Abandoned Sock, The Lost Lions, Story for Sara Alphonse Allais, The Salt Herring Charles Cros, Leaves from a Mislaid Album, and A Limerick
Amphigorey Also, 1983 (ISBN 0156056720) - contains The Utter Zoo, The Blue Aspic, The Epipleptic Bicycle, The Sopping Thursday, The Grand Passion, Les Passementeries Horribles, The Eclectic Abecedarium, L'Heure bleue, The Broken Spoke, The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, The Glorious Nosebleed, The Loathsome Couple, The Green Beads, Les Urnes Utiles, The Stupid Joke, The Prune People, and The Tuning Fork
Amphigorey Again, 2004 (ISBN 0151011079)

He also illustrated some 50 works by other authors, such as Samuel Beckett, Edward Lear, John Bellairs, H. G. Wells, Alain-Fournier and John Ciardi.

Legacy

Gorey's influence is readily apparent in the work of many artists working in many different mediums. Cartoonists such as Dame Darcy and Tony Millionaire tell dark, whimsical tales with plenty of Gorey-esque visual flourishes; Hollywood's Tim Burton's directorial style owes much to Gorey, and goth musical acts like The Dresden Dolls and Nine Inch Nails look like Gorey characters and tell Gorey-like stories in their songs (The Nine Inch Nails music video for the song "The Perfect Drug" was designed specifically to look like a Gorey book, with familiar Gorey elements including oversize urns, topiary plants and glum, pale characters in full Victorian costume).

A more direct link to Gorey's influence on the music world is evident in "The Gorey End", an album recorded in 2003 by The Tiger Lillies and the Kronos Quartet. This album was a collaboration with Edward Gorey, who liked previous work by The Tiger Lillies so much that he sent them a large box of his unpublished work, which were then adapted and turned into songs. Edward Gorey passed away before hearing the finished album.

In the last few decades of his life, Gorey merchandise become quite popular, with stuffed dolls, cups, stickers, posters and other things available at malls around the USA.

Pseudonyms

Gorey was very fond of word games, particularly anagrams. He wrote many of his books under pseudonyms that were usually anagrams of his own name (most famously "Ogdred Weary"). Some of these are listed below, with the corresponding book title(s). "Eduard Blutig" is also a word game: "Blutig" is German (the language from which these two books were purportedly translated) for "bloody," which is a synonym for "gory."

Ogdred Weary - The Curious Sofa, The Beastly Baby
Mrs. Regera Dowdy - The Pious Infant
Eduard Blutig - The Evil Garden (translated from Der Böse Garten by Mrs. Regera Dowdy), The Tuning Fork (translated from Der Zeitirrthum by Mrs. Regera Dowdy)
Raddory Gewe - The Eleventh Episode
Dogear Wryde - The Broken Spoke/Cycling Cards
E. G. Deadworry - The Awdrey-Gore Legacy
D. Awdrey-Gore - The Toastrack Enigma, The Blancmange Tragedy, The Postcard Mystery, The Pincushion Affair, The Toothpaste Murder, The Dustwrapper Secret (Note: These books, though attributed to Awdrey-Gore in Gorey's book, The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, were not really written.)
Edward Pig - "Untitled Book"

References

The World of Edward Gorey, Clifford Ross and Karen Wilkin, Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996 (ISBN 0-8109-3988-6). Interview and monograph.
Ascending Peculiarity, ed. Karen Wilkin, Harcourt, Inc., 2001 (ISBN 0-15-100504-4). Selected interviews from 1973 to 1999, plus miscellaneous quotes and illustrations.
Elephant House: Or, the Home of Edward Gorey, Kevin McDermott, Foreword by John Updike, Pomegranate, 2003 (ISBN 0764924958). Photographic study of Gorey's home as it was at the time of his death. Includes biographical text of his life on Cape Cod, plus miscellaneous quotes and illustrations.

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