Amphigorey

Author: Edward Gorey
Published: 1980
Pages: 192
Genre: Creepy Cartoons
Target Age: Teens and older
Synopsis:
This collection of 15 stories written and illustrated by Edward Gorey includes the famous Gashlycrumb Tinies ("A is for AMY who fell down the stairs, B is for BASIL assaulted by bears"). Some of the stories follow a single plot while others are a collection of limericks or short poems. (Interesting fact: the title is a play on the word amphigory, meaning a nonsense verse.)

My Thoughts:
Even if his stories are creepy and don't make sense most of the time, I enjoyed Amphigorey for its illustrations and silly rhymes (see quote below).

My Recommendation:
A good coffee table book--you can pick it up and look at it for a little while, but don't have to make a commitment. Recommended for those with a dark sense of humor or a fear of commitment.

Biographical Notes:
Gorey is famous for his distinctive black and white drawings of sad-looking, skinny people. People love describing his work as 'macabre.' (I will refrain from doing so in light of a traumatic run-in I had with a hipster whose persistent use of the word to describe something pretentious forever soured it to me.)
Some interesting things I learned about Gorey from Wikipedia: "Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980... [he was] also published under pen names that were anagrams of his first and last names, such as Ogdred Weary, Dogear Wryde, Ms. Regera Dowdy, and dozens more...The settings and style of Gorey's work have caused many people to assume he was British; in fact, he never visited Britain, and he almost never traveled. In later years, he lived year-round in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, where he wrote and directed numerous evening-length entertainments, often featuring his own papier-mâché puppets, in an ensemble known as La Theatricule Stoique. His major theatrical work was the libretto for an Opera Seria for Hand Puppets titled The White Canoe...Gorey was noted for his fondness for ballet, fur coats, tennis shoes, and cats, of which he had many."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gorey)

Selected Quote:
A beetling young woman named Pridgets
Had a violent abhorrence of midgets;
Off the end of a wharf
She once pushed a dwarf
Whose truncation reduced her to fidgets.