Edward Gorey at 100
Edward Gorey at 100
New York, February 2026 — The celebration of the centenary of Edward Gorey comes to a close on February 22, 2026, marking the end of a year that brought renewed attention to Gorey’s art, writing, and enduring influence. Across twelve months, the centenary honored Gorey’s singular voice through new publications, exhibitions, performances, the reopening of the Edward Gorey Online Store, and collaborations with contemporary designers.
Edward Gorey (1925–2000) was an American writer and artist whose distinctive pen-and-ink style, dark wit, and theatrical sensibility reshaped the landscape of illustrated literature. Best known for works such as The Gashlycrumb Tinies and The Doubtful Guest, Gorey created a body of work that resists easy categorization, blending Victorian aesthetics, absurdist humor, and quiet emotional depth. Over the course of his career, Gorey illustrated more than one hundred books, authored dozens of his own, designed sets and costumes for theater and ballet—winning him two Tony Awards—and cultivated a devoted international readership that continues to grow across generations.
The centenary year began with a birthday celebration in New York that gathered voices from publishing, the arts, and music, setting the tone for a year rooted in creative exchange and readership. The evening featured performances by Jesse Paris Smith and Patti Smith, with remarks by Justin Theroux and Norman Reedus, underscoring the broad cultural reach of Gorey’s work and its continued relevance across disciplines.
Throughout 2025, Gorey’s diverse body of work was revisited across a wide range of new publications. In February, New York Review Books released From Ted to Tom, a long-a waited collection of mail art and correspondence that Gorey sent to his friend Tom Fitzharris in 1974 and 1975. Transit Books issued a new edition of The Very Fine Clock, written by Muriel Spark and illustrated by Gorey, as the inaugural title of its children’s book imprint. Edward Gorey House Director Gregory Hischak compiled and expanded a decade’s worth of House exhibition catalogs in the sumptuously illustrated E Is for Edward: A Centennial Celebration of the Mischievous Mind of Edward Gorey. Rounding out the year, Insight Editions published Uneasy Elixirs: 50 Curious Cocktails Inspired by the Life and Work of Edward Gorey, by renowned food and drink writer Virginia Miller.
From October 4, 2025, to February 7, 2026, the Society of Illustrators in Manhattan, in partnership with the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, hosted Something Else Entirely, an exhibition of illustration art by Gorey created for authors other than himself. The exhibition broke attendance records at the 125-year-old institution, with a widely attended opening reception and sold-out panel discussions and tours. At the same time in Cambridge, Harvard’s Houghton Library presented a wide array of classic Gorey publications alongside many never-before-exhibited or unpublished works from Gorey’s college years to enthusiastic audiences. Additional major exhibitions took place at Texas A&M University with Ubiquitous Edward Gorey and toured across Japan, where the four-year Journey to the World of Edward Gorey came to a close in August. Meanwhile, live performances from Central Florida to Mumbai, India, brought Gorey’s works to life through dance, music, puppetry, and projection in new stage interpretations for new audiences.
The centenary also extended into contemporary culture through design collaborations that introduced new ways to engage with Gorey’s work. These included a collection of home fragrances developed with Heretic Parfum and the relaunch of the Edward Gorey Online Store. The Store now features collaborations with independent makers from around the world, including Flipboku’s Mystery! flip book, Collectable Cities keychains and forthcoming Gorey and Dracula figurines, and a QRV mug collection developed with NotNeutral, alongside many additional objects intended for everyday use. Together, these initiatives positioned Gorey within a broader universe of readers, collectors, and independent artisans and designers.
As the centenary concludes, Gorey’s work can be seen not as a fixed legacy, but as an active and evolving body of literature and art—one that continues to invite reinterpretation, scholarship, and creative response. Across publishing, performance, exhibition, and design, the year affirmed Gorey’s enduring relevance and the capacity of his work to move fluidly between disciplines, generations, and cultural contexts.
The centenary was stewarded by the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, whose mission is to honor the creative and philanthropic legacy of Edward Gorey through preservation and promotion of his literary and artistic works and support of animal welfare causes, as stipulated in his will. The Trust oversees licensing, publishing, and educational initiatives that ensure Gorey’s work continues to be shared responsibly and meaningfully.
The Trust is a partner to the Edward Gorey House, Gorey’s former home in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts. A museum since 2002, the House offers visitors an intimate view into the artist’s life and working environment through rotating exhibitions, original artwork, and personal artifacts. The House remains a central place for scholarship, public engagement, and the continued celebration of Gorey’s creative world.
More information can be found at:
https://www.edwardgoreytrust.org
https://shop.edwardgorey.org
https://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org
