Remembering Edward Gorey …

When I signed in to the Internet yesterday I was pleased to see that Google had used a series of Edward Gorey illustrations to spell their name. Obviously they were celebrating his birthday, Feb. 22nd, 1925 and, since he is a favorite of mine, I was pleased to see that.

After his death in 2000 his home, “Elephant House” on Cape Cod, was converted to a museum celebrating his life’s work and his two nephews are the curators. Or, at least they were the curators both times that I visited.
                                   

The rambling house is over 200 yrs. old and seems to derive it’s name from the strange siding. It is wood that is weathered and wrinkled with age, like the skin of an elephant. Gorey was eccentric enough to want to keep it like that and wouldn’t think of having it scraped and repainted.

He was an eclectic and creative artist with many of his works geared to children although most editors shunned them as being unsuitable because of their dark humor. His “Alphabet Book”, for example, depicts the perils of childhood … example:

Edward Gorey produced more than 70 books in his lifetime and he never ran out of ideas. He constantly “pushed the envelope”, testing and teasing his readers.   After our tour the nephews told us to wander at our leisure and we did. Every nook and cranny was filled with remembrances of Edward Gorey... books, paintings, puppets, stuffed animals and even gravestones out in a garden with the chiseled letters R.I.P. It is a museum unlike any I’ve been to before or since and it was great                                        

It truly lived up to it’s name...GOREY.