Rating: 
Summary: not his best
Review: I really enjoy most of Gorey's works, usually because the pictures are wonderfully creepy. In this book, the images lack teh detail that you find in so many of Gorey's other works. The story, a strange "Christmas Carol"-like thing, doesn't make the book worth getting, without better pictures to back it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Regardless, it is fantastic
Review: I thought it was a lovely book. Mr. Gorey is in his 70's now, and I'd like to see if anyone can do careful cross-hatching for hours on end at that age. I thought it was delightful and one of his wittiest books. And his illustrating style for this book is not new-- it resembles some of his early (pre-solo) work.
Rating: 
Summary: A slight poem
Review: I've read this book a time or two and looked up words I thought I knew. They're sometimes long, sometimes arcane and even sometimes quite inane.Didactically its well diffused. It's only we it leaves confused. Just when you think you've got the plot, you find what's plot is really not. And here's a clue that's truly droll. Wallpaper seems to have a role. Perhaps it's meant to be the paste that makes diffusiveness a whole. Yet it's a Dickens of a story, and we know, of course, it's a-la-Gorey.
Rating:
Summary: Gorey is brilliant as usual
Review: Mr. Gorey's unique sense of humor is sure to be appreciated for people with a taste for the subtle and obscure. This pastiche of "A Christmas Carol" finds Gorey in fine form, particularly with the irrelevant introduction of a large bug character, and the end when celebrations are carried "to the very edge of the unseemly." Wonderful! The art work, done in a style imitating the rustic wood carvings that have become common fodder in some holiday cards of late, is both Goreyan and new.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The story was up to snuff but the art work was very flat. Not the Gorey-ish style that I like. Is the grammatical faux pax, "her husband's were the brains" a swipe at a low country accent or a computer spell check error?
Rating:
Summary: Gorey gone wild
Review: There is a curious subgenre of psedo-Victorian British macabre writing penned by Americans with little or no ties to Mother England. Lemony Snicket is the most recent example, though the patron saint of the style is the indelible Edward Gorey. In Gorey's "The Haunted Tea-Cosy", we find a very oddly written story made with more than its fair share of humor. Even the title is funny. How many Americans own tea-cosies today, I wonder. And is the plural of cosy "cosies" or "cosys"? Such answers will not be found in this book. It is still worth a gander. The plot, such as it is, follows a somewhat "Christmas Carol"ish venue. In it Edmund Gravel is enjoying his yearly fruitcake and letter-writing when a large Bahhum Bug leaps from under Gravel's tea-cosy to proclaim, "I am here to diffuse the interests of didacticism". I wish more characters in books would say this. The bug and Gravel are joined by three spirits that show him (in this order) Affecting Scenes, Distressing Scenes, and Heart-Rending Scenes. These scene include things like Alberta Stipple returning home to find the wallpaper in her drawing room gone. In the end Gravel decides to throw a party (yay) and the show ends with some suggested pornographic dealings (possibly leading into Gorey's more disturbing story "The Curious Sofa"). Gorey is very much an adult's picture book author. Kids will probably not be too terribly entranced by his fine pen-and-ink drawings or his cumbersome words. But he's the best, Gorey is. No one writes of disaffected despair more lightly or amusingly. This book won't exactly become a Christmas classic, but its worth a perusal when you find yourself on a overcast Sunday in your home with nothing to do.
Rating:
Summary: Gorey gone wild
Review: There is a curious subgenre of psedo-Victorian British macabre writing penned by Americans with little or no ties to Mother England. Lemony Snicket is the most recent example, though the patron saint of the style is the indelible Edward Gorey. In Gorey's "The Haunted Tea-Cosy", we find a very oddly written story made with more than its fair share of humor. Even the title is funny. How many Americans own tea-cosies today, I wonder. And is the plural of cosy "cosies" or "cosys"? Such answers will not be found in this book. It is still worth a gander. The plot, such as it is, follows a somewhat "Christmas Carol"ish venue. In it Edmund Gravel is enjoying his yearly fruitcake and letter-writing when a large Bahhum Bug leaps from under Gravel's tea-cosy to proclaim, "I am here to diffuse the interests of didacticism". I wish more characters in books would say this. The bug and Gravel are joined by three spirits that show him (in this order) Affecting Scenes, Distressing Scenes, and Heart-Rending Scenes. These scene include things like Alberta Stipple returning home to find the wallpaper in her drawing room gone. In the end Gravel decides to throw a party (yay) and the show ends with some suggested pornographic dealings (possibly leading into Gorey's more disturbing story "The Curious Sofa"). Gorey is very much an adult's picture book author. Kids will probably not be too terribly entranced by his fine pen-and-ink drawings or his cumbersome words. But he's the best, Gorey is. No one writes of disaffected despair more lightly or amusingly. This book won't exactly become a Christmas classic, but its worth a perusal when you find yourself on a overcast Sunday in your home with nothing to do.
Rating:
Summary: Bahum Bug and Happy New Year
Review: This book is a wonderfl antithesis to all the forced jollities of Dicken's beloved chestnut. Old Scrooge should only meet this Bahum Bug! Instead, the Yuletide Bug takes the dour Edward Gravel through a tour of Christmases that Never Were, Isn't, and Never Will Be, all shown in wonderfully ambiguous terms. Of course the Moral Lesson Is Learned, and Mr.Gravel learns to sheer cheer with the equally grey people of his town of Lower Spigot. But the delight is that nowhere does Gorey force the lesson on us, never do the odd little tragedies, even in cemetaries, force one to See the Real Meaning of Christmas--until we have finished the story, and even then it is a droll little moral. This is one story I intend to make a holiday standard in my family.
Rating:
Summary: Bahum Bug and Happy New Year
Review: This book is a wonderfl antithesis to all the forced jollities of Dicken's beloved chestnut. Old Scrooge should only meet this Bahum Bug! Instead, the Yuletide Bug takes the dour Edward Gravel through a tour of Christmases that Never Were, Isn't, and Never Will Be, all shown in wonderfully ambiguous terms. Of course the Moral Lesson Is Learned, and Mr.Gravel learns to sheer cheer with the equally grey people of his town of Lower Spigot. But the delight is that nowhere does Gorey force the lesson on us, never do the odd little tragedies, even in cemetaries, force one to See the Real Meaning of Christmas--until we have finished the story, and even then it is a droll little moral. This is one story I intend to make a holiday standard in my family.
Rating:
Summary: A Delightful and Delicious Diversion for Christmas!
Review: This book will surprise any Goriphile, like myself. At first glance the pictures look inky and undetailed. But, then you realize the main joys in this book are the way EG maps out Lower Spigot in words, the even plot line (uncommon for Eg) and, perhaps most of all, the unique colours (dull plum, tea green, brown and grey) I can't wait for its sequal The Headless Bust!
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