It’s the birthday of Edward Gorey, known for his silly, grisly, disturbing, darkly funny pseudo-Victorian drawings and stories—and best known for the title sequence animation for PBS Mystery (1980). Many have assumed that the aptly-named Gorey must have been a grim personality with many Edwardian skeletons in his closet, but by all accounts Gorey was a happy man who enjoyed life.

Born in Chicago in 1925 (sorry, not on a bleak estate in 19th century England), Gorey was a precocious child, drawing by the tender age of two and reading by three. By five, he’d read two of the books that influenced his work hugely, Dracula and Alice in Wonderland. (To any young children reading this: chop-chop. Get moving. Pick your major life influences. May I recommend Chekhov?) Gorey’s parents divorced when he was 11, but later remarried each other when he was in his twenties. Gorey attended some shi shi school in Chicago, the Francis Parker School, and just had time for a couple courses at the Art Institute of Chicago before he was drafted in 1943. (He served at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.) In 1946 he entered Harvard, graduating in 1950 (mildly interesting fact: same class as Henry Kissinger). While there, he worked with the Poets Theatre as a writer, director, and set designer.

He ended up in New York City working in the art department at Doubleday Anchor and then other publishing houses, before going freelance; Gorey illustrated well over 300 books for other authors in his lifetime. At the same time, he was working on his own books, starting with The Unstrung Harp: or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel (1953). (If you haven’t read this yet, you have a little treat in store. Gorey’s portrayal of the writing process is hilarious. And Mr. Earbrass’ publishers are named Scuffle and Dustcough.) The Unstrung Harp is considered a forerunner of the graphic novel movement and was followed by The Doubtful Guest (1957) and a ton of other small, weird, wonderfully illustrated tales. In 1962, Gorey created his own private imprint, The Fantod Press, and began selling many of his copies through the Gotham Book Mart, which eventually opened an art gallery; Gorey exhibited his work there for thirty-two years. (Fun fact, if you read yesterday’s post: “fantod” is a word David Foster Wallace loved to use in Infinite Jest, as in, someone had the “howling fantods.”) Today the easiest way to access most of Gorey’s work is via one of his anthologies: Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), Amphigorey Also (1983), and Amphigorey Again (2006). Gorey also worked with community theatres on Cape Cod, where he summered with relatives, and he designed a production of Dracula on Nantucket in 1973 that went to Broadway in 1977 and was a huge success, winning Gorey a Tony for Best Costumes.

Gorey lived for many years in NYC and early on began attending every single performance of every single production of George Balanchine’s NYC Ballet. It was pointed out on the podcast “Stuff You Missed in History Class” that this means he attended 40 performances of The Nutcracker every year. Balanchine’s influence on Gorey’s drawings can readily be observed. But in 1979, Gorey bought a house on Cape Cod and began living there permanently in 1983, with six cats—not seven, which he said would have been too many. In spite of the raccoon coats he’d always worn in NYC, he became a big advocate for animal welfare, and eventually stored his fur coats and let a family of raccoons live in his attic. Gorey died at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts, on April 15, 2000, several days after a heart attack. He left most of his estate to a charitable trust benefiting cats, dogs, insects, and bats.

Fun fact: Gorey had no serious romantic relationships. In an interview, he once said he was neither “one thing nor the other” and felt fortunate to be “undersexed.”

Have a lovely, drifting snowflakey kind of Thursday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.