Edward Gorey Obituary

by Tim Wick

How do you write an obituary for a man whose works revolved, at least in part, around death?

When you saw this obituary, did you know who Edward Gorey was? You may not have known him by name, but you have seen his work. Perhaps you saw his gruesomely humorous credit sequence for PBS' Mystery! series. More likely, when you were in college, a friend had a poster of 26 children dying in alphabetical order ("A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil, assaulted by bears..."). You may have never seen the book called The Gashleycrumb tinies , but I'll bet you saw that poster.

Me, I remember the book You read to me, I'll read to you from my childhood. Unlike The Gashleycrumb tinies, Gorey did not write the book. He did do the illustrations, and I had honestly forgotten how much of an impression those illustrations had on me until I did some research to write this obituary.

In addition to being an artist and Author, Gorey was even a designer. Among his many awards was a Tony for costume design of the 1977 production of Dracula.

I wish I had many words for this great artist, but frankly I was only a fringe fan. I loved his work when I saw it, but did not actively seek it out. That is an error that the news of his death will hopefully correct. His frequently macabre sense of humor seems out of place in today's politically correct society, which is a shame. I don't think our society as it stands could breed another artist like him - an artist who recognizes that death can be funny. I hope that I am wrong.

So if you would like to know more about this great artist than I do, you can read the article from the New York Times.

I've been trying to find a complete bibliography for him on line, but all the sites are down. The best I can do is give you this link to his works that are available for sale on Amazon.com.

Edward Gorey died on April 15th, 2000. He was 75. I gotta go watch Mystery!