Biography

A truly prodigious and original artist, Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000), gave to the world over one hundred works, including The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest and The Wuggly Ump; prize-winning set and costume designs for innumerable theater productions from Cape Cod to Broadway; a remarkable number of illustrations in publications such as The New Yorker and The New York Times, and in books by a wide array of authors from Charles Dickens to Edward Lear, Samuel Beckett, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Florence Heide and many others. His well known animated credits for the PBS Mystery series have introduced him to millions of television viewers. Gorey's masterful pen and ink illustrations and his ironic, offbeat humor have brought him critical acclaim and an avid following throughout the world.

"[Edward] Gorey’s unique talent should be represented as completely as possible in every collection of American art and literature."
~American Library Association (booklist)

"An extraordinary imagination."
~Publisher’s Weekly

"A great American illustrator… fascinating."
~London Observer

"Edward Gorey’s works are equally amusing, somber, and nostalgic… I like to return to them. He is really becoming a master."
~Edmund Wilson

"[Edward Gorey is] sublime, absurd and mystical."
~Oskar Kokoschka

"A major graphic artist… his originality is profound."
~Commentary (John Hollander)

"Dark masterpieces of surreal morality…beautifully depicted."
~Vanity Fair

"One of the great American artists of the 20th century."
~Book Page

"A unique bygone world… carefully crosshatched [books], startling, superb, consummately mature."
~John Updike

"An American original… one of this century’s foremost eccentric geniuses."
~Print Magazine

"Exquisitely engraved, each picture tells a story… a masterly draughtsman’s technique."
~London Times

"Incredibly sophisticated…stylish and inventive."
~New York Observer

"Unforgettable, magic, insightful and mysterious… as full of wisdom as of delight."
~The Baltimore Sun

"One of the most literate and sophisticated graphic masters of our time."
~U.C.L.A. Performing Arts

"Luxuriously crossed and crosshatched… marvelous drawings. A gallery of splendid gloom… matchless beauty and richly satisfying… [a] delightful entertainer."
~New York Post

"Not enough praise has been awarded to Gorey’s superb prose. He possesses the ear of a great parodist… a distinctive vision that is nobody’s but his own. Through his genius and industry, he created a whole climate of the imagination…"
~Washington Post

Edward Gorey published over one-hundred of his own works and has illustrated the works of Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Hilaire Belloc, John Ciardi, Muriel Spark, Edmund Wilson, Peter Neumeyer, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Florence Parry Heide, Bram Stoker, Raymond Chandler, Gilbert & Sullivan, and many others.