Rating: 
Summary: Macabre blast from the past.
Review: I first found this book in a library when I was in the throws of teenage angst and at the time it appealed to my morbid state of mind. Now I have a slightly less tragic appreciation of Edward Gorey. I love his dark illustrations and equally dark content. The tragic ends of children in The Gashlycrumb Tinies brings to mind all those children I look at and think, you little brat!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing to the extremes
Review: I found this book to be extremely unsettling, but at the same time engrossing. The story about all the children who die made me sick, but at the same time made me read on. Anyone who reads this will undoubtably have mental problems later on in life, including me unfortunately. I would not recomend this book for anyone who does not appreciate morbid humor.
Rating:
Summary: Goth, but with a sense of humour...
Review: I grew up with Gorey, thanks to a mother with a rather odd taste in children's literature. When I was finally able to purchase this book, it was as if I came home to an old friend -- probably Uncle Fester... The drawings are oddly Edwardian, the tales are both silly and shuddery, and the whole sense is that of Goth filtered through Monty Python. Bravo, Gorey!!
Rating:
Summary: Dark, odd, quirky drawings and tales from the master...
Review: I recently discovered the work of Edward Gorey in a curious little gift shop in the tourist area
of New Haven, CT. I was instantly mesmerized. I'd suggest that anyone who delights in EA Poe
should have a look at this.
Rating:
Summary: A delicious collection of Gorey's dark and twisted humor.
Review: I was introduced to this book by a friend of mine whose sense of humor is almost as twisted as that of Gorey himself. He delighted in sharing with me "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" (in which small children meet their doom in alphabetical order) and "The Curious Sofa: a pornographic tale" (in which Gorey lays sexual innuendo so thick that it becomes absurd and absolutely hilarious). After wresting the book from the aforementioned friend's hands, I read the rest of it. To my delight I found morbid limericks and quatrains, stories apparently composed of random sentences, and tales of tales of mishap and tragedy--each accompanied by illustrations in Gorey's macabre style. I would recommend this collection to anyone who has outgrown Dr. Seuss but still wants to look at the pictures. An incautions young lady named Venn
Was seen with the wrong sort of men
She vanished one day
But the following May
Her legs were retreived from a Fen
Rating:
Summary: A delicious collection of Gorey's dark and twisted humor.
Review: I was introduced to this book by a friend of mine whose sense of humor is almost as twisted as that of Gorey himself. He delighted in sharing with me "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" (in which small children meet their doom in alphabetical order) and "The Curious Sofa: a pornographic tale" (in which Gorey lays sexual innuendo so thick that it becomes absurd and absolutely hilarious). After wresting the book from the aforementioned friend's hands, I read the rest of it. To my delight I found morbid limericks and quatrains, stories apparently composed of random sentences, and tales of tales of mishap and tragedy--each accompanied by illustrations in Gorey's macabre style. I would recommend this collection to anyone who has outgrown Dr. Seuss but still wants to look at the pictures. An incautions young lady named Venn
Was seen with the wrong sort of men
She vanished one day
But the following May
Her legs were retreived from a Fen
Rating:
Summary: Makes Economic Sense, If Nothing Else
Review: If for no other reason than cost-efficiency, you ought to buy this collection of the late Edward Gorey's books; it doesn't cost very much more than the individual hard-cover original editions of the fifteen books collected here. Most people will recognise Gorey as the designer of the credits for the long-running PBS series "Mystery!", if nothing else; but he is so much more. If i were forced to guess, based strictly on the contents of the fifteen volumes collected here, i would have had to say that Edward Gorey was obviously an elderly and somewhat dotty Englishman. As a matter of fact, he was neither elderly nor English -- but that's the type of material he excelled at; that somewhat macabre but utterly devastating straight-faced black humour that seems to a Mere Colonial such as myself as Utterly British. One could, for instance, question whether the untimely demise of twenty-six children -- in alphabetical order, with lovingly-rendered illustrations of their antepenultimate moments -- was a fit subject for humour. Whether or not it is becomes a moot question almost as soon as one begins reading "The Gashleycrumb Tinies" -- "'A' is for ANNA, who fell down the stairs. 'B' is for BASIL, assaulted by Bears..." Sick or not, if you can read all twenty-six pages of this little monograph and not laugh, there is something wrong with you. Possibly the best thing in the book -- though it's *all* excellent -- is "The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel", which has been described by an acquaintance who works as an editor at a major New York publisher as one of the more accurate portrayals of the process he has ever read. {Horrifyingly so, i inferred from his comments.} Rather gentler and more restrained and cultured than the work of Gahan Wilson, a bit less anarchic than "The Far Side", this is still a wonderful antidote to all of society's little hypocrisies and refusals to face the reality of the gleeful darkness that every one of us has (generally fairly well hidden) somewhere in our soul.
Rating:
Summary: A twisted genius
Review: It is true that Gorey's odd poems often go beyond bad taste, but it is done with such twisted genius that it is hard to feel anything but awe toward the writer/artist of this collection. From the often hilarious non-sequiters of "The Object Lesson" and "The Willowdale Handcar," to the creepy, sick, and yet brilliant "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" "The Insect God" and "The Listing Attic," this is a book that's worth what ever money you pay to get it. Also be sure to check out the creepy art of "The West Wing"
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy the small books, buy the Amphigoreys! Quick!
Review: It should be noted that Amphogorey is a nearly complete collection of Edward Gorey's stories. If you want to have a collection of his works, buy the amphigorey series, not the smaller editions of his individual stories, because they are included in Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, and Amphigorey also, along with many many out of print stories. Don't make my mistake and end up with two versions of the same story. There is no BS, there are about 18 of his books verbatim in each Amphigorey. If you get all three, that's all you need.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Collection of Morbid Stories
Review: It's absolutely divine....Gorey has a sense of humor that no other author can replicate!!
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