Call it nominative determinism, Edward Gorey (1925–2000) was an American illustrator and author known for his macabre, surreal, often eerie, pen & ink drawings.
He has a cult following amongst Victorian and Edwardian Gothic fans; you can see his influence on Tim Burton, especially the figures of The Gashlycrumb Tinies (see top iillustration and dactylic couplet abecedarium below it). I absolutely love the morbid humour!
Whilst a designer at Doubleday in New York, he illustrated editions of T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, amongst others
Hugely prolific, his first book was The Unstrung Harp, published in 1953. Other popular works include The Doubtful Guest, Amphigorey and The Utter Zoo: An Alphabet. He continued releasing work up to the year before he died. In addition, he wrote several books under pseudonyms that were often anagrams of his own name – most famously Ogdred Weary.
He said of his ‘nonsense’ works:
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.
There is a documentary about Edward Gorey – funded on Kickstarter – that has been in the pipeline for aaaaaages – I’ve put together a number of video clips below that may or may not be used within the final film.
Additional image credits: