An incautions young lady named Venn
Was seen with the wrong sort of men
She vanished one day
But the following May
Her legs were retreived from a Fen



No-nonsense verse, a very necessary composition   June 15, 2000
 42 out of 47 found this review helpful

Edward Gorey was a master of the macabre. Seemingly inappropriate, always bizarre, Mr. Gorey walked the taboo tightrope in his stories and illustrations. Here are fifteen such delightfully atrocious tales, compiled for the convenience of his very demented fans (including yours truly).

First is "The Unstrung Harp" about a befuddled and (in appearance) paranoid writer who trudges through his maddening existence, as so many a writer inevitably will. The casual reader might find this tale odd, but anyone who has ever taken to writing seriously will feel nothing but empathy. Has one of the greatest ending lines of any story I've ever read.

Next is "The Listing Attic", a series of devilish ryhmes with correlating illustrations. Many of these are horrible in design yet strangely you'll find yourself laughing at the unfortunate mishaps that fall upon the characters.

Now, on to "The Doubtful Guest" about a mysterious penguin-like creature that arrives at a residence only to act in a seemingly irrational way, doing things for inexplicable reasons. Personally I think this is nothing more than a metaphor for the unexpected in life and how it's more irrational for people to waste time trying to make sense out of these things. But that's just me.

"The Object Lesson" is just plain confusing, as if Mr. Gorey was just penning random thoughts and then illustrating them. Definitely weird.

"The Bug Book" is pretty childish in design and, to me, not particuarly noteworthy.

"The Fatal Lozenge" is another series of ryhmes, although the level of morbidity and violence is pretty much maxed out. Reading these you won't find yourself able to laugh, only maybe able to produce a nervous twitter as you ponder how very real these situations could be.

"The Hapless Child" is nothing short of a masterpiece, evoking every emotion from love to terror this tragedy should have a place in American high school curriculum, but alas public education systems in this nation would rather not deal with horrible reality.

"The Curious Sofa" is an attack on preconceived notions of sexual morality, being pornographic only in suggestion the point is that if someone who considered him/herself to be in the right in his/her sexual ideals he/she wouldn't understand the innuendo of the words and illustrations. A very interesting piece.

"The Willowdale Handcar" is a story I didn't like.

"The Gashlycrumb Tinies" has to be my favorite Edward Gorey piece, a sinister telling of the Alphabet with a small child meeting its demise for each letter, kind of an anti-Alligators All Around. I have a separate review posted for this story as it is deserving of the title of literature.

"The Insect God" is another disturbing work involving intelligent, and apparently religious, giant sized bugs.

"The West Wing" is a series of illustrations that force the reader to create his/her own captions for what is depicted.

"The Wuggly Ump" is a silly song about a very hungry monster.

"The Sinking Spell" is another tale of an unexpected visitor, a creature on an indecipherable journey.

Last, is "The Remembered Visit" about a woman who can't forget the odd travels of her youth or her meeting of a once famous man.

That's it, the coffee table book to beat all coffee table books, the ultimate conversation piece. But, then again, everything Edward Gorey did was worthy of conversation.


A wicked good collection to be read over and over   July 6, 1999
 17 out of 17 found this review helpful

When I first picked up this book, I had no idea what to expect. I was even more bewildered when I opened it up and looked at the drawings. I thought to myself, what in the world is this? Then I started reading.

Edward Gorey's work is at times subtle or broad, ironic or slaptstick, and always brilliant. How dare this man call himself a children's book author! His books are for everyone, not just tots. Startlingly funny and morbid, the books in this volume (and his other collections) will make the reader laugh and snicker until they are sick. The dark humor of "the Gashlycrumb Tinies", the burlesque of "the Curious Sofa", the absurdity of "the Doubtful Guest", the dry wit of "the Unstrung Harp", every story is different. Every story is a gem. Gorey's books are a must-have for absolutely everybody.


The Gashlycrumb Tinies Demand Your Presence!   January 9, 1999
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

This book is GORGEOUS. I first discovered it while hanging about at a Christmas party at the house of a pair of my uncle's co-workers. I didn't know any of the guests, so I looked around the house and discovered the host's collection of antique books, Amphigorey among them. When the lord of the household found me sitting in his rocking chair and reading, he graciously invited me to borrow the volume, which I did. How grateful I am!

Edward Gorey is the Renee Magritte of literature. I have always loved bizarre, vague, puzzling works, and Amphigorey is delightfully, bitterly twisted. The characters are so spectral. On each page I see... not nightmares, but dark dreams surfacing. This wild, enchanting book ranks alongside William J. Meyer's comic book saga, White Bread, as one of my favorite "what the hell is going on" works of literature.

Within the borrowed volume I read, I discovered an artifact that may be of immense value. It was a printed invitation decorated by a copy of Edward Gorey's drawing of the Gashlycrumb Tinies and their Grim Reaper nanny. In Gorey's handwriting, the invitation gave the names of two gentlemen and continued "...and the Gashlycrumb Tinies demand your presence at their home at 8:00 pm on ALL HALLOWS EVEN [that's not a typo], 1975." The invitation announced a costume contest and gave an address and phone number. Ah, to have attended Mr. Gorey's celebration! He is surely the master of Halloween.


Makes Economic Sense, If Nothing Else   May 11, 2000
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

If for no other reason than cost-efficiency, you ought to buy this collection of the late Edward Gorey's books; it doesn't cost very much more than the individual hard-cover original editions of the fifteen books collected here.

Most people will recognise Gorey as the designer of the credits for the long-running PBS series "Mystery!", if nothing else; but he is so much more.

If i were forced to guess, based strictly on the contents of the fifteen volumes collected here, i would have had to say that Edward Gorey was obviously an elderly and somewhat dotty Englishman. As a matter of fact, he was neither elderly nor English -- but that's the type of material he excelled at; that somewhat macabre but utterly devastating straight-faced black humour that seems to a Mere Colonial such as myself as Utterly British.

One could, for instance, question whether the untimely demise of twenty-six children -- in alphabetical order, with lovingly-rendered illustrations of their antepenultimate moments -- was a fit subject for humour. Whether or not it is becomes a moot question almost as soon as one begins reading "The Gashleycrumb Tinies" -- "'A' is for ANNA, who fell down the stairs. 'B' is for BASIL, assaulted by Bears..." Sick or not, if you can read all twenty-six pages of this little monograph and not laugh, there is something wrong with you.

Possibly the best thing in the book -- though it's *all* excellent -- is "The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel", which has been described by an acquaintance who works as an editor at a major New York publisher as one of the more accurate portrayals of the process he has ever read. {Horrifyingly so, i inferred from his comments.}

Rather gentler and more restrained and cultured than the work of Gahan Wilson, a bit less anarchic than "The Far Side", this is still a wonderful antidote to all of society's little hypocrisies and refusals to face the reality of the gleeful darkness that every one of us has (generally fairly well hidden) somewhere in our soul.