'A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh...'

The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense. From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth. But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known -- in the late 1940s, no less -- to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes -- but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose? He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious. Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, Born to Be Posthumous draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.

A look at the artist and his work, including his illustrations for T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and the animated credits for the Mystery! series on public television.

Originally published in 1963, The West Wing is one of Edward Gorey's classic books. This wordless tale unfolds through thirty-one mysterious drawings that carry the viewer from room to room via long corridors. Peeling wallpaper hangs to the floor, a candle held by invisible hands casts light into the dark, and odd characters appear unbidden. The viewer wonders: What's haunting this building? And who left that boulder on the table?First released as part of The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction (whichincluded The Gashlycrumb Tinies and The Insect God) this book is undoubtedly a cautionarytale. Stop. Do not enter. Unless you dare to find out what's happening in The West Wing.

A new, small-format edition of one of Edward Gorey's "dark masterpieces of surreal morality" (Vanity Fair): a witty, disquieting journey through the alphabet.

Called "a small masterpiece" by the "Times Literary Supplement, " this book, originally published in 1953, takes a look at the literary life and its attendant woes: isolation, writer's block, professional jealousy, and plain boredom. Illustrations.

"An artist and writer of genius" (New Yorker) gives us a small-format edition of one of his favorite tales-a deliciously twisted comedy of manners.