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.

On a blind date in Greenwich Village set up by Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson (then Joyce Glassman) met Jack Kerouac in January 1957, nine months before he became famous overnight with the publication of On the Road. She was an adventurous, independent-minded twenty-one-year-old; Kerouac was already running on empty at thirty-five. This unique book, containing the many letters the two of them wrote to each other, reveals a surprisingly tender side of Kerouac. It also shares the vivid and unusual perspective of what it meant to be young, Beat, and a woman in the Cold War fifties. Reflecting on those tumultuous years, Johnson seamlessly interweaves letters and commentary, bringing to life her love affair with one of American letters' most fascinating and enigmatic figures.

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.

While Sam, the dog, tries to explain that everyone should be allowed their own way of doing things, Emma, the cat, can only scoff at the animals they meet during their walk through the woods.

Twenty-six curious creatures—from the fastidious Ampoo to the world's one and only Zote—fill the pages of The Utter Zoo, an alphabet from the untamed imagination of Edward Gorey. The Boggerslosh, the Crunk, and the Dawbis; the Ippagoggy, the Jelbislup, and the Kwongdzu; the Scrug, the Twibbit, and the Ulp—each strange and wonderful zoomate displays its own primary characteristic, described in Gorey's inimitable, droll, rhyming couplets.A writer and artist with an instantly recognizable style, Gorey (American, 1925–2000) created over one hundred works and was also a playwright, an award-winning set and costume designer, and the creator of the animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! First published in 1967, The Utter Zoo is a favorite of Gorey fans, young and old alike—no matter how well they know their ABCs.

This volume provides an introduction to the diverse field of visual culture in the 19th century. It surveys major changes in the field taking into account photography, theatrical practice, changing land- and cityscapes as well as new technologies for entertainment and information. The inventions and discoveries of the period revolutionized methods of cultural production, provoked new intentions in representation and radically altered the experience of the visual in art as well as everyday life. Hence people had to adapt to new perceptions and their habitual ways of seeing were challenged. At the same time they carved out new positions for themselves vis a vis the visual, defining new identities as spectators and observers. In addition to the introductory overview, the volume offers a collection of articles which concentrate on less well-known aspects of Victorian visual culture, seeking to contribute an explanation in the context of the larger political, thus seeking to disclose new vantage points for explanations in the of the larger political, ideological and psychological context of the era.