His work, which spans over six decades, is collected in four excellent volumes entitled Amphigorey - I, II, III, IV - a play on the word amphigory, meaning a nonsense verse or composition. The Gashlycrumb Tinies comes in a string of more than 40 gems Gorey published in his lifetime, including favorites like The Epiplectic Bicycle and The Doubtful Guest. Presented in a series of interrelated rhyming couplets, the book, in less than 30 pages, succinctly recounts the grisly and untimely demises of 26 unfortunate. Part Tim Burton long before there was Burton, part Edgar Allan Poe long after Poe, the book exudes Gorey’s signature adult picture book mastery, not merely adorned by the gorgeously dark crosshatched illustrations but narratively driven by them. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh…” “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,” The Gashlycrumb Tinies begins. In 1963, prolific illustrator and author Edward Gorey (February 22, 1925–April 15, 2000) published an alphabet book so grimly antithetical to the very premise of the genre - making children feel comfortable and inspiring them to learn - that it took the macabre humor genre to a new level. The book incorporates several elements from alphabet books (such as having each child in the book named after a letter in the English alphabet, and having each entry illustrated), and appends a cause of death for each child, such as being set on fire, being run over by a train or being attacked by wild animals.It’s no secret I have a massive soft spot for alphabet books. The book, an abecedarium, tells of the deaths of twenty-six children, and is told in thirteen rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black-and-white illustrations. Gorey has stated the book to be inspired by "those 19th century cautionary tales, I guess, though my book is punishment without misbehavior". Far from illustrating the dramatic and fantastical childhood nightmares, these scenarios instead poke fun at the banal paranoias that come as a part of parenting. The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an alphabet book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963 as the first of a collection of short stories called The Vinegar Works, the eleventh work by Gorey.
The morbid humor of the book comes in part from the mundane ways in which the children in the story die, such as falling down the stairs or choking on a peach. It has been described as a "sarcastic rebellion against a view of childhood that is sunny, idyllic, and instructive". It is one of Edward Gorey's best-known books and is the most notorious amongst his roughly half-dozen mock alphabets. The book tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths. The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an alphabet book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963 as the first of a collection of short stories called The Vinegar Works, the eleventh work by Gorey.
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