I discovered Edward Gorey when I was seven or so, my older brothers having pointed out one of the Amphigorey books in a local bookstore. There I read The Gashlycrumb Tinies. The next few times I went to the bookstore, I took the book off the shelf and read another section, but my allowance limited me to buying novels, and I never got one of the Amphigorey books.

Eventually, fortunately, I married a wonderful lady who posessed all the Amphigorey books, as well as hardbound copies of The Doubtful Guest and The Willowdale Handcar. Reintroduced to Edward Gorey, I fell in love all over again with his lovely lines and strange sense of humor.

Edward Gorey today is probably most familiar from the credits to PBS's Mystery, for which he provided the artwork. He also drew many of the covers for John Bellairs' popular children's novels.

I used to have a large number of Gorey sites listed. More than half of them are no longer up, apparently due to the actions of Mr. Gorey's lawyers. I could, I suppose, redo all the work I put into finding those sites, and make up a new list, but I'm not strongly inclined to do so. I had hoped, as no doubt many of the owners of the other websites had hoped, to increase appreciation for Mr. Gorey's works.

In recent years, Mr. Gorey has come out with some new books, noticeably inferior in my opinion to his earlier work, but in much the same vein, including The Haunted Tea Cosy and The Headless Bust. If you want to explore Edward Gorey, I suggest you start with the anthologies Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, and Amphigorey Also.

Edward Gorey died in the Spring of 2000.

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