Word: hornbook
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...chronological span of Gorey's work runs from the hornbook-inspired Eclectic Abecedarium through the Jazz Age-naughtiness of The Curious Sofa but will budge no further. An enthusiasm for the obsolete furnishes his rooms with daguerreotypes, gramophones and bell-pulls, and his diction matches the furniture-- his characters say things like "Mercy!" and "Drat!." Gorey's nonsense verse is the direct descendant of Edward Lear's and Lewis Carroll's, and, as it would be impossible to transplant Lear or Carroll to another era, Gorey inherits their Victorian world along with their spirit...
Suddenly, here comes 4AD, their record label, under the aegis of big bad Elektra, with a two-CD compilation. It's being marketed as some kind of hornbook for those unbaptized in the waters of the Isla de Encanta, but this is hardly an effective form of proselytization. The first CD brings us seventeen "classic tracks from the band's five albums." What this really means is that it features the songs most often played on 120 Minutes, with no real regard to what's worth a good god damn. The first seven songs on this disc read like...