Gorey James

Dover Publications do a sterling job keeping a lot of great literature available at very cheap prices, as well as some great art collections and early graphic novels by the likes of Lynd Ward. But it's also true that much of their literature collection have uninspired covers and not always very sensitive typography. However, their most recent Henry James reissue, What Maisie Knew, uses the cover originally created for Anchor in the 1950s by the late Edward Gorey (about who I've written a lot in the past).

And here's the original Anchor edition:

Compare this with some of their other Jameses, and you'll agree it's a great improvement. More Gorey, please!

Here are two more old Gorey James covers, stolen from E·ratio.

Gorey Deflowering Follow-Up

As part of the extended Edward Gorey cover design bonanza, one of the books we looked at was The Recently Deflowered Girl: The right thing to say on every dubious occasion.



A helpful commenter on that post, Jamie, has pointed the way to a spot online where the whole book has been posted. Here are a couple of pages to give you an idea... (Click for readable-sized versions.)

Edward Gorey Bonanza Part 5

The conclusion is here! These are the books by Edward Gorey (some first published under a pseudonymous anagram like Ogdred Weary, Regera Dowdy, E. G. Deadworry or D. Awdrey-Gore) with his own artwork on the covers and throughout.




















Then there's The Dwindling Party, his pop-up book:





If you want to read more Gorey, almost all of his work has been collected in the four Amphigorey compendiums: Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, Amphigorey Again and Amphigorey Also.

Edward Gorey Bonanza Part 4

Here we have something of a mixed bag: a representative sample of Edward Gorey's covers for other people's books that don't fit into one of the three other categories. Here you'll find crime novels, poetry, cookery, biography, guides to gravesites, fantasy, non-fiction, and a book consisting entirely of transcripts from the nocturnal utterances of a man who talks in his sleep.

























I should note that I suspect The Recently Deflowered Girl was actually written by Gorey under a pseudonym, but because I'm not certain I'm including it here, rather than in the next post, which will look at Gorey's covers for his own books.