Gorey, Edward St. John

▪ 2001

      American illustrator and writer (b. Feb. 22, 1925, Chicago, Ill.—d. April 15, 2000, Hyannis, Mass.), created meticulous black-and-white crosshatched drawings to accompany both other authors' works and his own eerie and macabre yet witty gothic stories, which featured pale, haunted characters facing bizarre fates in bleak settings. He wrote at least 90 books and illustrated some 60 others—many of them under such anagrammatic pseudonyms as Ogdred Weary, Drew Dogyear, Dogear Wryde, and Mrs. Regera Dowdy—as well as designing the opening animated sequence for PBS's Mystery program and costumes and sets for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula. He won the 1978 Tony Award for that show's costumes. Gorey took art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and, following World War II military service, attended Harvard University, graduating in 1950. He worked in Boston illustrating book jackets before moving to New York City, where he worked in Doubleday & Co.'s art department, staying after hours to create his own books. When he could not find a publisher, he started Fantod Press to print them, beginning with The Unstrung Harp (1953), and sold them to stores directly. Such works as The Doubtful Guest (1957), about a strange penguinlike being that moves into a mansion and shows no sign of leaving, attracted praise from Edmund Wilson in The New Yorker magazine in 1959 and led to illustration commissions for Gorey. He continued producing his own works as well, publishing such future classics as The Hapless Child (1961), the illustrated alphabet The Gashlycrumb Tinies (1962), and The Wuggly Ump (1963). Gorey—a fan of ballet, especially dances choreographed by George Balanchine—made it a point to attend every home performance of the New York City Ballet until Balanchine's death in 1983 and featured the ballet in some of his books, among them The Gilded Bat (1966) and The Lavender Leotard (1973). His works were anthologized in Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), and Amphigorey Also (1983) and were dramatized in a number of adaptations, including Gorey Stories (1978) and The Vinegar Works (1989). Gorey moved to Cape Cod, Mass., in the 1980s and, in addition to publishing such works as The Raging Tide: Or, the Black Doll's Imbroglio (1987) and The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium (1999), began directing revues based on his works.

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