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. An eccentric, funny book for either the uninitiated or diehard Gorey fans.Ĭontains: The Unstrung Harp, The Listing Attic, The Doubtful Guest, The Object Lesson, The Bug Book, The Fatal Lozenge, The Hapless Child, The Curious Sofa, The Willowdale Handcar, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, The West Wing, The Wuggly Ump, The Sinking Spell, and The Remembered Visit.īorn 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 Gashlycrumb Tinies,' for example, begins like this: 'A is for AMY who fell down the stairs, B is for BASIL assaulted by bears,' and so on. Many of Gorey's tales involve untimely deaths and dreadful mishaps, but much like tragic Irish ballads with their perky rhythms and melodies, they come off as strangely lighthearted. Clavius Frederick Earbrass: 'He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel.' In 'The Listing Attic,' you'll find a set of quirky limericks such as 'A certain young man, it was noted, / Went about in the heat thickly coated / He said, 'You may scoff, / But I shan't take it off / Underneath I am horribly bloated.' ' The first book of 15, 'The Unstrung Harp,' describes the writing process of novelist Mr. As always, Gorey's painstakingly cross-hatched pen and ink drawings are perfectly suited to his oddball verse and prose. The title of this deliciously creepy collection of Gorey's work stems from the word amphigory, meaning a nonsense verse or composition.

Amphigorey