I received a copy of Elegant Engimas: The Art of Edward Gorey through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program, a shamefully long time ago, and was very pleasantly surprised when I received it to discover it was basically a hardcover exhibition catalog, in other words, much nicer than I was vaguely expecting.
As that may suggest, there are two significant parts to this book, an introductory essay and then a large number of reproduced images. The essay is by Karen Wilkin and is titled “Mildly Unsettling.” I think this gives you a reasonable way of calibrating your tastes against hers: as I’ve said before, I find Gorey’s art considerably more than mildly unsettling, so a lot of the ways Wilkin’s essay was useful to me was crystallizing the ways I didn’t agree with her, that is, didn’t have the same reactions. But it did a very good job of pointing out some characteristics of Gorey’s art that I would not have consciously identified and describing the breadth of Gorey’s work and some of his influences.
Between the essay and the images, I now have a short list of Gorey works that I want to see in their entirety:
- The Raging Tide; or, The Black Doll’s Imbroglio, which features “battered stuffed toys” in “ambiguous settings, simultaneously indoors and out,” and whose captions are things like: “No. 18. There’s no going to town in a bathtub. If you want to get back to the story, turn to 16. If you would like to tour the Villa Amnesia, turn to 23,” where of course the pages in question have nothing obvious to do with the text;
- [The Untitled Book], “in which a fierce battle between real and invented creatures is elucidated by such captions as ‘Ipsifendus’ and ‘Quoggenzocker,’ ending with an enigmatic ‘Hip, hop, hoo”; and
- The Haunted Tea-Cosy, a parody of A Christmas Carol in which “Scrooge becomes a generic parsimonious recluse, confronted by a multilimbed insect, the Bahhum Bug, whose role is ‘to diffuse the interests of didacticism.'”
The plates include some unpublished images, alternate covers and studies for later drawings; drawings that Gorey did for other authors; theater designs; and really cool illustrated envelopes he sent to his mother (never before printed). Oddly, nothing from The Curious Sofa is included, though it’s mentioned in the essay and presumably they would have had access (since other works also reprinted in Amphigorey are included). I can only assume that the exhibition didn’t want the controversy of displaying “pornographic” works, though they’re nothing of the sort.
This would be particularly good for library collections, but those who like Gorey’s work should definitely take a look.
[The Untitled Book] is in Amphigorey Too, and The Haunted Tea-Cosy and The Raging Tide are in Amphigorey Again. Buying them separately is possible, but looks to be rather more expensive (The Raging Tide isn’t available anywhere for less than $30, it seems), and if you get those volumes you’ll have 3/4 of his published work (there is a fourth volume, Amphigorey Also).
Hey, thanks–I hadn’t actually gotten around to looking for them yet, because free time, what?
*wishlists*
Let me offer an alternative hypothesis for the absence of The Curious Sofa. I find it hard to imagine that the art would be considered too risqu
And yet the book also includes early works (the envelopes to his mother), covers for other artists, and theater designs–which last are also very unlike his usual art.
OK, I give up. Sounds like I’m wrong.
BTW, put me in the camp of people who find Gorey’s illustrations pleasantly macabre, but the texts occasionally disturbing (or worse).
I believe that you’re not too far away from the Gorey house on Cape Cod, which they’ve turned into a museum, including his big fur coat and Tony award. An interesting half hour if you’re in the area. In your copious free time!
I’ll remember it next time I’m in Massachusetts!