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

In the 19 years since his death, the inimitable Edward Gorey has lacked an appropriate biographer, leaving a literary gulf of the first water. This book finally fills the gap; and while it is no means perfect, it goes a long way toward assuaging his many admirers' innate curiosity about this wildly witty and intelligent man, whose immense output of ominous, albeit humorous tales, in Victorian-Edwardian settings, have become, deservedly, classics.

With rings on his fingers and bells on his toes, to paraphrase the nursery rhyme (let alone full-length fur coats, which he sported regardless of season), his sartorial eccentricities alone rendered this mythical character unique. Yet his shy benevolence and sheer amiability made him a very close friend, within a narrow circle, of male and female alike. Imperturbably asexual, surrounded by his beloved cats, his inimitable drawings, latched to a perennially dry and very Harvard humour, he led a monastic life, yet created a prodigious archive of books and illustrations that live on long after his death (some have still to be published).

T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", and John Bellairs' many books for children, all sport Gorey jackets. But his own works, anthologised in such wonderful works as "Amphigorey" and "Amphigorey Too", remain the touchstones by which his art is judged.

An excellent biography, long overdue, of a great and lasting character.

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