Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey

by Mark Dery

Overview

The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.

From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.

But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known — in the late 1940s, no less — to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes — but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose?

He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious.

Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, Born to Be Posthumous draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316188548
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	161,053
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Mark Dery is a cultural critic. He coined the term "Afrofuturism," popularized the concept of "culture jamming," taught at Yale and NYU, and has published widely on pop culture, the media, and on the mythologies (and pathologies) of American life.

His books include Flame Wars, a seminal anthology of writings on digital culture; Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the end of the century, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, and the essay collection, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams. Like Gorey, his mission in life "is to make everybody as uneasy as possible."

Table of Contents

Introduction A Good Mystery 3

Chapter 1 A Suspiciously Normal Childhood: Chicago, 1925-44 20

Chapter 2 Mauve Sunsets: Dugway, 1944-46 58

Chapter 3 "Terribly Intellectual and Avant-Garde and All That Jazz": Harvard, 1946-50 69

Chapter 4 Sacred Monsters: Cambridge, 1950-53 104

Chapter 5 "Like a Captive Balloon, Motionless Between Sky and Earth": New York, 1953 124

Chapter 6 Hobbies Odd-Ballet, the Gotham Book Mart, Silent Film, Feuillade: 1953 147

Chapter 7 Épater le Bourgeois: 1954-58 172

Chapter 8 "Working Perversely to Please Himself": 1959-63 193

Chapter 9 Nursery Crimes-The Gashlycrumb Tinies and Other Outrages: 1963 219

Chapter 10 Worshipping in Balanchine's Temple: 1964-67 237

Chapter 11 Mail Bonding-Collaborations: 1967-72 263

Chapter 12 Dracula: 1973-78 301

Chapter 13 Mystery!: 1979-85 324

Chapter 14 Strawberry Lane Forever: Cape Cod, 1985-2000 336

Chapter 15 Flapping Ankles, Crazed Teacups, and Other Entertainments 369

Chapter 16 "Awake in the Dark of Night Thinking Gorey Thoughts" 381

Chapter 17 The Curtain Falls 399

Acknowledgments 417

A Note on Sources 421

A Gorey Bibliography 423

Notes 427

Index 485

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Lethem

“Edward Gorey has been granted the most remarkable biography, one I believe he could have lived with. What was the likelihood that this singular genius could be restored, with such compassion and grace, within his whole context: Balanchine, Surrealism, Frank O’Hara, Lady Murasaki, et al? This is a Dery Gorey book.”

Author of A Series of Unfortunate Events - Daniel Handler

“Edward Gorey’s ardent admirers have long known there is something about his work one can’t quite pin down. Past all reason, Mark Dery has pinned it down. A genius book about a bookish genius.”

Editorial Reviews

Gorey…isn't the easiest target for a biographer, as Dery himself admits. Part of this has to do with what seems to be the enormous gap—or the yawning crevasse, to put it in high-flown Goreyland terms—between art and artist…The outsize persona was in some ways a red herring. Other than his memorable attire and committed balletomania, Gorey's life was, as Dery says, "disappointingly normal"…Faced with so much ordinariness, Dery does his best, which proves to be more than enough. Born to Be Posthumous is an entertaining account of an artist who liked to be coy with anybody who dared to write about him.

The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

10/01/2018
Avant-garde writer and artist Edward Gorey comes across as almost odder, if less adventurous, than his characters in this atmospheric biography. Gorey, a native Chicagoan and an Anglophile, innovated by looking back to vintage British illustrations, stocking his drawings with bearded gentlemen, bustled ladies, flappers, and crepuscular mansions; his groundbreaking short picture books featured droll send-ups of Victorian melodrama, replete with dying children, bizarre creatures invading parlors, and dark figures haunting lonely landscapes. Culture critic Dery (Flame Wars) shrewdly plumbs Gorey’s work, which inspired goth fashions, Tim Burton movies, and Lemony Snicket’s children’s books. In his telling, Gorey’s personality is also a showy exterior with an enigmatic interior: Gorey sported a bristling beard, long fur coats, jewelry, and Wildean mannerisms; though he was prone to at times having “all-consuming crush” on men, he proclaimed himself asexual. Gorey’s uneventful, solitary life can be less than exciting, and the narrative sometimes bogs down in his collections and love of George Balanchine’s ballets. Fans will like the immersion in Gorey-ana, but others may feel that this colorful protagonist lacks a compelling plot. Photos. Andrew Stuart, Stuart Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

One of the Best Books of the Year:NPR, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Paste, Mental Floss, San Francisco Chronicle

"As a perfervid Goreyphile, I was a bit leery of a biography undertaking to spell out the details of his life. Did I really want to have the mystery solved? But Mark Dery drags the pond to revelatory result, contextualizing and analyzing Gorey, plunging into his obsessions, dissecting his sexuality, and even examining the philosophical import of nonsense while somehow managing to leave the central enigma radiantly intact. This is an absolutely riveting book about an utterly sui generis subject."—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"The best biographies are the result of a perfect match between author and subject, and it's relatively rare when the two align perfectly. But that's the case with Born to Be Posthumous—Dery shares Gorey's arch sense of humor, and shows real sympathy for his sui generis outlook and aesthetics. Dery's book is smart, exhaustive, and an absolute joy to read... the biography [Gorey] has long deserved."—NPR

"A detailed, devoted, and highly readable biography of the illustrator who—from The Doubtful Guest to The Curious Sofa—defined and embodied a world of camp, gothic hilarity."—Ben Schott, The Guardian

"Smart and entertaining... brings us closer than ever to understanding a man devoted to enigmas."—Washington Post

"Edward Gorey has been granted the most remarkable biography, one I believe he could have lived with. What was the likelihood that this singular genius could be restored, with such compassion and grace, within his whole context: Balanchine, surrealism, Frank O'Hara, Lady Murasaki, et al? This is a Dery Gorey book."—Jonathan Lethem

"Provocative... Dery makes a convincing case that Gorey was the true godfather of Goth, inspiring a generation of pop culture memento mori, from the IMAX-scale nightmares of Tim Burton... to the travails of Lemony Snicket... Dery has set the standard for a comprehensive appraisal of his legacy."—San Francisco Chronicle

"An entertaining account of an artist who liked to be coy with anybody who dared to write about him."—New York Times

"Gorey has found a superb biographer in Mark Dery... Some enigmas aren't meant to be solved—but they can be usefully illuminated. That's just what Dery does in this excellent book."—Seattle Times

"Ravishing...Dery portrays the man behind those odd little books that delighted in showing children in danger, blending Victorian and Surrealistic sensibilities; Gorey was a Harvard man, a balletomane, and ultimately, an enigma."—The Boston Globe

"Edward Gorey's ardent admirers have long known there is something about his work one can't quite pin down. Past all reason, Mark Dery has pinned it down. A genius book about a bookish genius."—Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events

"Will delight the most devoted bibliophile... deeply-researched."—Globe and Mail

"That sense of our ultimate aloneness in the world makes Gorey's books as haunting as they are odd. Dery's affectionate tribute to an artist who was 'incomparably, unimprovably himself' also shows Gorey evoking in his work feelings of alienation, longing, and dread that are perhaps more common than we like to admit."—Boston Globe

"Mark Dery's deep, clear-eyed biography of Gorey is so welcome. He pulls at the disparate threads running through Gorey's art... and unearths the artist's gay identity."—NPR

"Writer and illustrator Gorey is more myth than man. But Mark Dery fleshes out the Grandfather of Goth in this new biography, and by doing so, he paints a picture of a fascinating man... Dery fills in the rest of the pieces with affection, admiration, and humor."—Paste

"Knowing Gorey's full story, done sparkling justice by Mark Dery, will only make you adore him more."—Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

"Well-considered... Cultural critic Dery constructs a nimble framework to fully appreciate the gothic artist and designer's contributions to high art and queer culture... The reclusive author and designer of such ghoulish gems as The Doubtful Guest and the animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! comes fully alive, fur-coated and bejeweled, as an unlikely icon of the counterculture."—Kirkus

"Peculiar to a T, Gorey and his work are eccentric in the most congenial and appealing way, and cultural critic Dery gives them a book that matches them in ingratiation, fascination, and artfulness."—Booklist (starred review)

"Fascinating... Dery brings an analytical eye to the creations of the avant-garde illustrator and writer."—The National Book Review

"An inviting cabinet of curiosities...Every chapter is a revelation... fans will absolutely revel in this book... Mark Dery pulls back the grand drape in a way that does not dispel the magic but simply sanctifies Gorey's contribution."—Lambda Literary

"In his provocative biography of Gorey, Dery shows that the artist, instead of being a fusty old Edwardian misanthrope, was a flamboyant dandy and an early avatar of asexuality."—San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher

2018-09-03

A well-considered biography of Edward Gorey (1925-2000).

Cultural critic Dery (I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-By Essays on American Dread, American Dreams, 2012, etc.) constructs a nimble framework to fully appreciate the gothic artist and designer's contributions to high art and queer culture, developments that mirror the popularization of art and literature after World War II as well as the campy "hiding-in-plain-sight" nature of the pre-Stonewall gay experience. The author probes his subject's close, unconsummated relationships with school friends, an Army librarian during the war, and, later, picture-book collaborator Peter Neumeyer to prove no exception to Gorey's official line that he was "reasonably undersexed or something." Comparisons to Edwardian throwback novelists Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett place Gorey's macabre rightfully at the heights of aestheticism and the surrealist vanguard, only he aimed his "revolt through style" at the gloomy British past. Dery's puzzling subject, the son of a prominent Chicago publicist, shines brightest in the early years. He caught the art bug early in his youth, under private school teacher Malcolm Hackett, and he later jousted at Harvard with verse prodigies like John Ashbery and Gorey's freshman roommate, Frank O'Hara. Following a Cambridge connection with publisher Jason Epstein, Gorey settled in New York to illustrate a famous run of Anchor paperback covers. Soon after, he was designing his first books, darker than Dr. Seuss and as visionary as Maurice Sendak. When he became a "cottage industry" in the 1970s, through merchandise at Gotham Book Mart and his design of the smash-hit Dracula on Broadway, Gorey was able to transcend the pop culture he also actively consumed, discussing the X-Files with fans later in his Cape Cod retirement.

The reclusive author and designer of such ghoulish gems as The Doubtful Guest and the animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! comes fully alive, fur-coated and bejeweled, as an unlikely icon of the counterculture.

Kirkus Reviews

Oh, what fun! An audiobook biography of Edward Gorey, whom most people know through his drawings, especially those used in the opening credits of PBS’s “Masterpiece Mystery.” Those works are famously dark, spare, black and white, and evidence of a mind that moved in a different direction from most people’s. As an artist, he’s whimsical, but many times his work crushes those with whom we sympathize. Narrator Adam Sims uses his deep, deliberate voice to create a dark atmosphere supportive of Gorey’s vision. In some ways he succeeds, but overall his narration is scratchy and slow. Sims certainly pronounces every word and tries to keep listeners moving through what was a complicated life. Too often, though, his voice loses distinction, his tone gets too low, and he doesn’t have the range to enliven the author’s words. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Oh, what fun! An audiobook biography of Edward Gorey, whom most people know through his drawings, especially those used in the opening credits of PBS’s “Masterpiece Mystery.” Those works are famously dark, spare, black and white, and evidence of a mind that moved in a different direction from most people’s. As an artist, he’s whimsical, but many times his work crushes those with whom we sympathize. Narrator Adam Sims uses his deep, deliberate voice to create a dark atmosphere supportive of Gorey’s vision. In some ways he succeeds, but overall his narration is scratchy and slow. Sims certainly pronounces every word and tries to keep listeners moving through what was a complicated life. Too often, though, his voice loses distinction, his tone gets too low, and he doesn’t have the range to enliven the author’s words. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile