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...Gorey's best-selling books used rhyme, whimsy and a distinctive cross-hatched style to depict the macabre, from the 26 dying children (one for each letter of the alphabet) of The Gashlycrumb Tinies to the hook-nosed visitor of The Doubtful Guest, who never seems to leave...
...Gorey liked to write about death and random disappearances and other ghastly happenings. He often made children the subject of these occurrences. He illustrated the English alphabet in several variations, depicting an unusual, grim or humorous way that children may die for each letter...
...Gashlycrumb Tinies, one of Gorey's most famous books, is one such illustrated alphabet. It begins: "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears...
...Africa too. Buddhist artifacts from northern India have been found in a Swedish Viking grave, as has a charcoal brazier from the Middle East." The Hagia Sophia basilica in Istanbul has a Viking inscription in its floor. A Mycenaean lion in Venice is covered with runes of the Norse alphabet...
DIED. EDWARD GOREY, 75, author and illustrator of more than 100 morbidly funny books; of a heart attack; in Yarmouth Port, Mass. A former book-jacket designer, he created such macabre classics as The Gashlycrumb Tinies, an alphabet book in which A stands for "Amy who fell down the stairs." Though not a recluse, Gorey avoided the limelight (he declined a 1980 Tony Award for his gothic Dracula set design). Despite plaudits from critics such as Edmund Wilson, Gorey said that to take his work seriously would be "the height of folly...