I got the first Amphigorey volume last year after finishing Mark Dery’s biography of Edward Gorey, Born to Be Posthumous. I finally picked it back up almost a full year later, and have been cheerfully reading a book from it every other day.
Until this lovely, lugubrious collection, The Gashlycrumb Tinies was the only proper Gorey book I had ever read. Which is wild even to me, considering how much love I have for the man’s art and style. This veritable beast of a volume boasts books like The Unstrung Harp, The Doubtful Guest, The Object-Lesson, The Willowdale Handcar, and The Westing Wing, however — stories that are regarded among Gorey’s best, so I very much feel as if I dove right into the deep end of bibliography.
The aforementioned books are all brilliant, but it’s The Unstrung Harp that in particular called out to, with its magnificently farcical and melodramatic portrayal of an author’s life. One surprising thing I learned from Dery’s book is that Gorey actually thought of himself foremost as a writer, and then as an artist — a notion that is clearly evident in this story.
It still stands that the man’s art often spoke louder than words, though, so I figured it pertinent to include some of my preferred pieces in this post.
ricardo reading 