a b Lumenello, Susan, "Edward Gorey: Brief life of an artful author: 1925–2000", Harvard Magazine, March–April 2007 Heller, Steven (2015). Edward Gorey: his book cover art and design. Portland, Oregon: Pomegranate. p.5. ISBN 978-0-7649-7147-1. A precociously gifted child, he grew up in depression-era Chicago, learning to draw at the age of one-and-a-half and teaching himself to read at three. He had devoured Dracula by the age of five and the complete works of Victor Hugo before he was eight, absorbing a gothic sensibility which would later imprint itself on his work. Balderston's revisions for the Broadway production included removing characters to reduce the total cast from eleven to eight. The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris (in any form) were completely removed, while Dr. Seward was aged up from one of the suitors to father of main female character.

He began working with Doubleday’s new imprint Doubleday Anchor in New York City and became a well-known name in the NY design world. His cover designs and commercial illustrations gained him recognition and his work with the publisher houses Looking Glass Library and Bobs-Merrill allowed him to launch out as a freelancer in the early 1960s. He had started writing and illustrating his own books while drawing over five hundred illustrations for others, with his first book being The Unstrung Harp published in 1953. Edward Gorey was born in 1925 and his gift for drawing and interest in books was apparent at a very young age. He thrived academically, skipped several grades, and was heavily involved in school activities. While still in school, his drawings got published in Chicago newspapers. In 1939, he started exhibiting his artworks at the Francis Parker School that he attended. He was drafted in World War II and served in the army from 1943 to the end of the war. After returning, he majored in French Literature at Harvard and wholeheartedly pursued writing stories and poems, designing sets, and directing for the Poets Theater.In 1975 Gorey became involved in printmaking and for the next twenty-five years he explored and produced a variety of limited-edition prints. Through the 1980s and 90s Edward worked with Brewster, MA printmaker Emily Trevor to produce an outstanding assortment of etchings and holographs. 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. During the original Broadway run, members of the Dracula cast presented an adaptation of the play on 30 March 1928, on the short-lived NBC Radio series Stardom of Broadway. Lugosi, Van Sloan, Peterson, Neill, and Jukes performed on the 30-minute program. [44] Films [ edit ] Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film adaptation mp_sf_list_0_description: 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. 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.

Christian, Maxwell (October 27, 2020). "Edward Gorey". Where Creativity Works . Retrieved September 16, 2022.Dery, Mark (November 14, 2018). "The Birth, Death, and Long Afterlife of Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies". Slate Magazine . Retrieved November 18, 2018. Although Gorey avoided “explaining” his many enigmatic books, during one of his interviews he did say to an inquiring journalist, when asked about his philosophy or religion, that he was a Taoist, and perhaps a surrealist. From his early teen art there are strong homages to Di Chirico, Dali, and Ernst clearly in evidence, as is his admiration for Sir John Tenniel, George Herriman, and James Thurber.

Critic David Ehrenstein, writing in Gay City News, asserts that Gorey was discreet about his sexuality in what Ehrenstein calls the "Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell era" of the 1950s. "Stonewall changed all that—making gay a discussable mainstream topic," writes Ehrenstein. "But it didn't change things for Gorey. To those in the know, his sensibility was clearly gay, but his sexual life was as covert as his self was overt." [27] By contrast, the critic Gabrielle Bellot argues that Gorey, "when pressed by interviewers about his sexuality ... declined to give clear answers, except during a 1980 conversation with Lisa Solod, wherein he claimed to be asexual—making Gorey one of few openly asexual writers even today." [28] (While Bellot interprets Gorey's answers as a declaration of asexuality, Gorey himself never uses that term in the Solod interview.) Edward was a child prodigy, drawing pictures at 18 months, and teaching himself to read by age three. Edward’s upbringing was chaotic with his parents constantly moving within Chicago. Edward skipped several grades, eventually ending up at the Francis Parker School in the ninth grade. He emerged from Francis Parker an exceptional student, active in school events, exhibits, school publications, and even getting drawings published in Chicago newspapers. At graduation, Edward had the highest regional scores on college boards and received scholarships to Harvard and Yale and other academic institutions. After graduation from Francis Parker, with pending draft notices at the age of 17, Gorey enrolled for some art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago before entering the U.S. Army. He served during World War II from 1943 until after the end of the war—primarily at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Deane's Dracula premiered on 15 May 1924 at the Grand Theatre in Derby, England. [9] Deane had originally intended to play the title role himself but opted for the role of Van Helsing. This production toured England for three years before settling in London, where it opened at the Little Theatre in the Adelphi on 14 February 1927. [10] It later transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre and then the Prince of Wales Theatre to accommodate larger audiences. [11] Broadway production [ edit ] The first Broadway production opened at the Fulton Theatre in 1927.A more direct link to Gorey's influence on the music world is evident in The Gorey End, [39] an album recorded in 2003 by The Tiger Lillies and the Kronos Quartet. This album was a collaboration with Gorey, who liked previous work by The Tiger Lillies so much that he sent them a large box of his unpublished works, which were then adapted and turned into songs. Gorey died before hearing the finished album. Melton, J. Gordon (2011). The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (Kindleed.). Canton, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. ISBN 978-1-57859-281-4. OCLC 880833173. The opening titles of the PBS series Mystery! are based on Gorey's art, in an animated sequence co-directed by Derek Lamb.

In 2007, The Jim Henson Company announced plans to produce a feature film based on The Doubtful Guest to be directed by Brad Peyton. No release date was given and there has been no further information since the announcement. The project was later announced again in 2021, with it now also being produced by Amblin Entertainment. The play was first staged in 1973, and for years, Gorey says, each time a theater company decided to put it on, he was called up to consult. He dutifully turned up each time, scowling glumly and wondering why. When it finally hit Broadway, he saw two-thirds of a rehearsal and left “jaundiced.” The final product left an even more sour taste. It was, he says, “absurd,” but very lucrative. As for the Tony, he says ironically, the award turned out to be “the cross I had to bear,” an embarrassing accolade for costumes he deemed unworthy of the honor. Edward Gorey’s works are equally amusing, somber, and nostalgic… I like to return to them. He is really becoming a master." Dracula has been a name that has instilled fear and fascination in the imaginations of readers and viewers since its original publication by Bram Stoker in 1897. There have been many adaptations and remakes of the novel since then, including F.W. Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Graunens, the 1931 Universal Studios version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula starring Gary Oldman and directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992. Photo from the Houston Chronicle‘s coverage of a production of Dracula at the Alley Theatre at Wortham Theatre, University of Houston, October 2014.)Frank Langella played the lead in this production, which used the play-text by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston. The last time this play had been brought to Broadway, the lead had been Bela Lugosi.