Celebrating 100 Years of Edward Gorey

The Book Review

The New York Times

Books, Arts

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You’re familiar with Edward Gorey, whether you know it or not. The prolific author and illustrator, who was born 100 years ago this week, was ubiquitous for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, and his elaborate black-and-white line drawings graced everything from book jackets to the opening credits of the PBS show “Mystery!” to his own eccentric storybooks. On this week’s episode, the Book Review’s Sadie Stein joins Gilbert Cruz for a celebration of all things Gorey.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the book review podcast.
0:09.4	We're coming off a short series of episodes here in which we spoke to directors and screenwriters involved in this year's Oscar-nominated films.
0:18.8	We head on Rommel Ross talking about Nickel Boys, James Mangold, talking about a
0:24.3	complete unknown, Peter Strawn, talking about Conclave, and Winnie Holtzman, talking
0:29.8	about Wicked, Part 1.
0:31.6	Hopefully you listen to some of them.
0:34.0	I recommend you listen to all of them.
0:36.4	This week, however, we're back firmly in
0:38.8	Bookland on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my all-time favorites,
0:45.7	Edward Gorey. Gory was a writer of more than 100 books, all of which he also illustrated
0:51.3	in his very distinctive style, black and white, pen and ink drawings full of hatching and crosshatching.
0:58.0	Those books are full of men, and women in Edwardian and Victorian dress,
1:03.3	think top hats and heavy coats, as well as children who are almost always in peril.
1:09.7	Arguably his most famous work, The Gashley Crumb Tini's, is a book of 26 scenes, proceeding
1:15.9	from A to Z, in which children meet just absolutely terrible ends.
1:20.7	It starts with A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs, and B is for Basil, assaulted by bears,
1:27.1	and ends with Y is for Yorick, whose head was
1:30.1	knocked in, and Z is for Zilla, who drank too much gin.
1:38.2	I love the grim and ironic and more than a little funny, ghastly crumb tini's, as do countless people the world over.
1:47.6	Luckily, I have one of those people here today with me.
1:50.5	Sadie Stein is an editor at the Book Review, Sadie.
1:53.4	Welcome back to the podcast.
	...

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