Edward Gorey
Designer, illustrator, and writer Edward Gorey was a master of the macabre. Born in Chicago in 1925, Gorey attended Harvard University, where his roommate was the future poet, Frank O’Hara. He began work in the art department at Doubleday publishers illustrating books. His reputation for tightly constructed Gothic tales, with pen and ink characters in Edwardian costumes, is based on over one hundred volumes of stories that are as dark as they are funny. An artistic descendant of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, who else could make one laugh at the death of twenty-six children knocked off in alphabetical order, as Gorey did in his book, Gashlycrumb Tinies or After the Outing? Throughout all of his books there is the odd, mysterious, and deeply disturbing presented with a child-like smile. Gorey won a Tony Award for his costume design, and set-design nomination, for Broadway’s 1977 production of Dracula. His characters were used for the animated introduction to the PBS popular series Mystery! in 1980. The anthologies Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), and Amphigorey Also (1983) capture many of his illustrations and stories. In addition to a love of films and ballet, Gorey was also a big fan of the Tiger Lillies, to whom he gave some material that they turned into songs for The Gorey End, three years after Edward Gorey’s death in 2000.
