A truly iconic sequence opens every episode of MASTERPIECE Mystery! and bewitches viewers. Animated ink drawings of couples waltz, lightning flashes, a caped man ducks from view, a woman swoons; this is the darkly comical work of author/illustrator/designer/enigma, Edward Gorey. For those eager to know more about this infinitely talented individual, we offer some delightful “gorey details,” from his low-brow guilty pleasures to his ardent love of ballet—along with insights from Gregory Hischak, curator of The Edward Gorey House.
- 1.
Gorey was a Precociously Gifted Child
Edward Gorey grew up in Chicago (not England) and started drawing at the age of 18 months. “Edward drew wonderful drawings quite early,” says Hischak. “We have his sausage train—little sausages linked together with wheels.” And it’s said Gorey taught himself to read by three-and-a-half. He gobbled up Alice in Wonderland and Dracula by the time he turned five, and Frankenstein at age seven. A year later, he was devouring Victor Hugo and Agatha Christie. Gorey skipped two years of elementary school, then started ninth grade at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago where he was encouraged to exhibit his artwork.
- 2.
He had Little Formal Art Training
Gorey got most of his art instruction from his four years at Francis Parker School. “It was almost a trade school art education,” says Hischak. “He had a very good teacher there; one who also sent notes back to Edward’s mom saying he wasn’t working up to his capacity in art.” After high school, Gorey also managed to squeak in a single semester at the Art Institute of Chicago before being drafted at 18 for WWII.
- 3.
He Majored in French Literature at Harvard
Gorey ultimately attended Harvard University on the G.I. bill, majoring in French Literature but also exhibiting artwork, publishing stories, and designing sets. Why French Lit? “He pompously said he’d read everything else in English,” says Hischak, “but it may have been close to the truth.” After graduation in 1950, Gorey got work in New York City illustrating a line of classic titles published in paperback for Doubleday’s Anchor Books, including TS Eliot’s Mr. Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds.
- 4.
His Fashion Sense was Unorthodox
Gorey’s personal style showed a singular spirit. He clad his six-foot, two-inch tall frame in full-length fur coats, ripped jeans, low-top white sneakers, plenty of jewelry, and eventually a bushy Edwardian beard. “He looks like those photos of Oscar Wilde wearing that glorious fur coat. He seems to have taken that as his style guide,” says Hischak. He favored big, thick rings for his fingers, which “weren’t rings at all, but weights and measures from the sub-Sahara that he bought someplace in New York,” adds Hischak.
- 5.
Gorey's Books Are Hard to Classify
Gorey created scores of meticulous little books; books publishers didn’t know what to make of. “He said most were meant for children, whether that’s wildly inappropriate or not,” says Hischak. Set in a vaguely Victorian period filled with doomed characters, these short works are surreal yet playful—with pen and ink etchings and the briefest of hand-lettered text. His books ran the gamut from the inexplicable The Doubtful Guest (1957) to the macabre alphabet book Gashlycrumb Tinies (1963) and didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. Gorey only began to see real earnings from these titles when they were resurrected as omnibus editions (Amphigoreys) by a new, marketing-savvy publisher.
- 6.
George Balanchine was his Muse
While living in New York City, Gorey habitually attended performances of the ballet. Five months out of the year—for nearly 30 years—he rarely missed productions showcasing the choreography of George Balanchine, whom he called “the greatest living genius in the arts.” Yet Gorey never so much as spoke to Balanchine. “They probably spied each other [at Lincoln Center] on an almost daily basis, but there was no collaboration of any kind between them,” says Hischak.
- 7.
He Could be High & Low Brow
A cultural omnivore, Gorey’s range of interests astounds. He was a movie addict who indulged in art-movie houses and screening clubs where he fell in love with Louis Feuillade’s gothic-styled silent films. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of 19th century Japanese cinema. He read voraciously and packed his home with over 25,000 books. But he also collected items ranging from cheese graters to doorknobs and could hold forth on topics from soap operas to the Golden Girls TV series. “He was all over the map, which is where he wanted to be,” says Hischak.
- 8.
He Won a Tony Award
Edward Gorey’s real star turn came with his contributions to 1977’s smash-hit Broadway revival of Dracula. The production starred Frank Langella as the Count, with Gorey designing everything from the sets to playbills and costumes. It was Gorey’s first foray into Broadway theater, and he won the 1978 Tony for Costume Design—though sent a friend to pick up the award as he was at the ballet. Gorey didn’t ultimately like the sets. “He felt his work looked garish when blown up that big,” says Hischak. “But he’s about the only one who didn’t [like them]. I’ve heard when the curtain went up, people burst into applause. The set got an ovation!”
- 9.
He Loved Cats Best
The supreme love of Gorey’s life he wrote were his cats. “He had cats early on and at age 8, was putting together little books with them doing dances,” says Hischak. “Many generations of the same cat family followed him all the way to NY.” Gorey forgave his cats—up to six at a time—for destroying furniture and jumping on his drawing table, sometimes ruining his work. In fact, he was a lifelong animal lover whose estate proceeds now fund the welfare of creatures from bats to invertebrates, and whales to, of course, cats.
- 10.
He Inspired Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman & More
Other macabre-leaning creatives openly admire Edward Gorey. Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and authors Maurice Sendak, Neil Gaiman, and Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) have all been forthcoming about his influence on their work. Tim Burton, not so much, though Hischak says “it’s pretty darn obvious.”
- 11.
Edward Gorey May Get a Stamp
Devotees have been working for years to have a stamp recognize Gorey on his 100th birthday in 2025. “We had a vigorous letter-writing campaign [to the US Postal Service] and we have Edward on the ballot for consideration” says Hischak. “I hope they have it in the back of their minds that it would be one of their best-selling stamps ever.”
- 12.
His Mission was to Make Us Uneasy
Gorey’s sinister universe is populated by ghoulish beasts, unsettling situations, and victims—often hapless children. He offered no explanation about the meaning of his work other than saying, “My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible … because that’s what the world is like.” His works “are about borders and boundaries,” says Hischak. “All the characters are coming right up against the boundary of death, of this world meeting the next world. Everyone’s teetering at that. And so that’s where he likes his work to live.”
