Fact is he was an American who lived an uneventful life with his cats on Cape Cod and an annual subscription to the Boston Ballet. His sensibility is droll, the look of his black and white drawings and nature of the writing so Victorian or at times Edwardian that many people still believe he was British. Too begins with 'The Beastly Baby,' a wonderfully drawn and written story put out under one of his many pen names, Ogred Weary. Unlike the others it's all black and white.

It's like the first greatest hits album from a band with more than enough material for four of them. They were done posthumously and each one is terrific. There are four compilations comprising the body of Edward Gorey's work not including collaborations: Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, Amphigorey Again and Amphigorey Also. 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. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. 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 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.Īlthough he would frequently state that his formal art training was 'negligible', Gorey studied art for one semester at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator.

He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist, from whom he claimed to have inherited his talents. Gorey's maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colourful family his parents, Helen Dunham Garvey and Edward Lee Gorey, divorced in 1936 when he was 11, then remarried in 1952 when he was 27.

The Eleventh Episode by Edward Gorey