Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Edward Gorey books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- Amphigorey: Fifteen Books (1980)
- The Fantod Pack by Edward Gorey (2007)
- Amphigorey Too (1980)
- Edward Gorey Sticker Book (2013)
- Gorey Creatures: A Book of Postcards (2009)
- Mysterious Messages, Cryptic Cards, Coded Conundrums, Anonymous Notes Book of Postcards (2010)
- The Beauty of Horror 1: A GOREgeous Coloring Book (2016)
- Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey (2002)
- The Gashlycrumb Tinies (Or, After the Outing) (1997)
- 26 Absurdities of Tragic Proportions (2018)
Amphigorey: Fifteen Books (1980)
An illustrated collection of 15 macabre short stories. In this gorgeously detailed volume, American artist and author Edward Gorey accents amphigory (nonsense verse or composition) with his signature cross-hatched pen-and-ink drawings. A mix of poetry and prose, light-hearted and decidedly more morbid storytelling, the book is sure to satisfy both fans of art and lovers of short stories alike.
The Fantod Pack by Edward Gorey (2007)
Edward Gorey’s trademark sense of impending doom is nowhere more darkly humorous than in this, his version of a tarot card deck. Each of the 20 cards forecasts a list of outcomes for the user ranging from the merely unpleasant (loss of hair, breakage, thwarted ambitions) to the downright horrible (catarrh, spasms, shriveling).
Amphigorey Too (1980)
This follow-up to the darkly humorous Amphigorey is wittier, more macabre, and more wondrous than ever. Master illustrator and iconic gothic storyteller Edward Gorey gives his fans 20 more nonsensically and mind-bending tales that draw fans and unsuspecting newcomers into a world only he can create.
Edward Gorey Sticker Book (2013)
With this sticker book, you get to play with 50 of Gorey’s characters from several of his books, including The Black Doll, Category, Dancing Cats, The Doubtful Guest, The Epiplectic Bicycle, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies. There are 185 stickers in all, with images of Count Dracula, ice-skating polar bears and alligators, several figbashes in ballet slippers, children astride weird dogs, and more. Have fun stickering!
Gorey Creatures: A Book of Postcards (2009)
Edward Gorey (1925–2000), much like an eccentric scientist in a gothic legend, brought to life from the laboratory of his mind altogether new and sometimes playfully sinister creations. Amazing and wonderful in their sardonic merriment, his drawings and stories have a special genius that resides in the effect of what is left unseen and unwritten.
Mysterious Messages, Cryptic Cards, Coded Conundrums, Anonymous Notes Book of Postcards (2010)
Much like an eccentric scientist in a gothic legend, Edward Gorey (American, 1925-2000) brought to life from the laboratory of his mind altogether new, intriguing, perplexing, often playfully sinister personalities.
The Beauty of Horror 1: A GOREgeous Coloring Book (2016)
Get that red crayon ready! With this coloring book for adults channeling The Walking Dead meets The Secret Garden, comics creator/rock star Alan Robert (Crawl to Me, Killogy, Wire Hangers) invites fans of horror to discover their inner-colorist. Through intricate pen and ink illustrations to complete, color, and embellish, readers will meet an onslaught of severed heads, monsters, deadly weapons, and skeletal remains.
Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey (2002)
Edward Gorey’s extraordinary and disconcerting books are avidly sought and treasured throughout the world, but until now little has been known about the man himself. While he was notoriously protective of his privacy, Gorey did grant dozens of interviews over the course of his life. And as these conversations demonstrate, he proved to be unfailingly charming, gracious, and fascinating.
The Gashlycrumb Tinies (Or, After the Outing) (1997)
Perennially beloved by those of morbid humor, this ABC in rhyme and scratchy pen-and-ink tells of the tragic and various ends of a crew of wan, hapless kiddies. “E is for Ernest who choked on a peach / F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech.” The moral, ambiguous though it may be, is that you can’t be too careful because it doesn’t matter whether you’re careful or not.
26 Absurdities of Tragic Proportions (2018)
Awarded Finalist Prize in the 2019 American Fiction Awards ‘Short Stories’ Category by American Book Fest.An utterly fascinating collection of short tales inspired by Edward Gorey’s alphabetical illustrations in ‘The Gashlycrumb Tinies.’These tales capture the essence of dark humor and satire with one tale for each child depicted in Gorey’s most famous illustrations.
Best Edward Gorey Books You Must Read
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some edward gorey books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey
Author(s): Mark Dery
ID: 2322121, Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, Year: 2018, Size: 44 Mb, Format: epub
Born to Be Posthumous: the Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey
Author(s): Dery, Mark;Gorey, Edward
ID: 2671080, Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, Year: 2018, Size: 5 Mb, Format: azw3
Edward Gorey On Stage: Playwright, Director, Designer, Performer: a Multimedia Memoir
Author(s): C.J. Verburg
ID: 3255441, Publisher: Boom-Books, Year: 2012, Size: 7 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are really chart-busters according to The New York Times, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.