Grisly and Gorey

From The Gashlycrumb TiniesEdward GoreyThis might seem shocking to some, but until last week, I had never heard of eccentric American illustrator Edward Gorey (1925–2000). I don’t know if it’s simply because he wasn’t popular in Australia during my childhood, or somehow I just missed his work. This year, my sister gave me a mini calendar of his The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a rhyming alphabet of children who die in all sorts of grisly ways, first published in 1963. And today I learned on Abebooks’ Facebook page that yesterday was his birthday.

From The Gashlycrumb TiniesDuring his career, Gorey illustrated many books, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds, as well as creating his own books, many of which were wordless. With strange and evocative titles such as The Sinking Spell, The Inanimate Tragedy, The Glorious Nosebleed, The Sopping Thursday and The Abandoned Sock, Gorey's stories are delightfully sinister, drawn with a Victorian or Edwardian flavour and are equally appealing to adults as well as children … Or perhaps that should be written the other way around, for although Gorey’s books were popular with children he did not in fact associate with any, nor indulge in any particular fondness for them!

From the Donald book seriesIn response to being called gothic, he stated, “If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point. I'm trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that’s true, there really isn’t. And there’s probably no happy nonsense, either.” [Wikipedia]

I don’t know that I agree with that – you just have to look at Roald Dahl for some happy nonsense, or even Dr Seuss. Gorey also reminds me very much of Lemony Snicket, whose children’s books I have read (as an adult, after ostensibly purchasing the first of his A Series of Unfortunate Events for my niece Rosiecheeks) and enjoyed very much.

Read more about Edward Gorey at Abebook’s story.

The Deranged CousinsThe Osbick Bird