Gorey Tales

PHOTO BY PERMISSION OF THE OSBORNE COLLECTION OF EARLY CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AND THE GOREY CHARITABLE TRUST
Edward Gorey's illustrations for Little Red Riding Hood

Gorey Tales, a new exhibit at the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Literature in Toronto, explores the more playful side of artist Edward Gorey.

Gorey is best known for his illustrations of faintly ridiculous Edwardian socialites, mustachioed men in long fur coats, unfortunate children and many cats. His art combines macabre subject matter with a dry wit to create a whimsical and sinister world. His illustrations and set designs for Dracula, and the opening credit animation for the long-running PBS series Mystery! made him famous. He has also stamped his unmistakable style on children’s book illustrations.

The Osborne Collection is located at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library. Over 80,000 rare children’s books are housed here, along with an accompanying gallery. Leslie McGrath, the department head at the Osborne Collection, said Gorey’s popularity has been drawing healthy crowds to the library.

“I think it’s been one of our best attended exhibits in years because his appeal is so broad,” she said.

A version of Little Red Riding Hood demonstrates Gorey’s versatility. The tiny figure of Red Riding Hood on the cover looks both innocent and slightly worried, but the heavy cross-hatching that usually characterizes his drawings is absent. While definitely Gorey, it’s much lighter than other pieces.

In The Dwindling Party, Gorey’s mordant humor is much more obvious. Pictures and pop-up pages illustrate the unhappy demise of the MacFizzit family during vacation, leaving only young Neville alive at the end.

Some of the miniature books Gorey has illustrated are scattered among the larger picture books. They’re merely an inch long, but the thumbnail sized illustrations are detailed and impressive.
Other children’s books, with darker themes from the Osborne Collection, are also on display. They help to anchor Gorey’s work firmly in the tradition of illustrated children’s books. Early versions of familiar fairy tales and popular Punch and Judy stories have distinctly dark undertones. McGrath said that’s something she hopes people will appreciate in this exhibit.

“There’s a long, fascinating tradition of this type of material in children’s publishing,” she said. “You can go right back to early materials to the world upside down […] on through Struwwelpeter, and even through Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark. There’s a long tradition of the macabre and the interesting, cautionary tales, in children’s books.”

The exhibit also includes some of his best known work, like a first edition of The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest, and a toy theatre Gorey based on his award-winning costumes and set design for Dracula.

The variety of material in Gorey Tales creates a picture of an artist able to apply his idiosyncratic style to the serious and whimsical alike. It’s been a pleasant surprise for many visitors, McGrath said.

“People can come in who don’t think about this person as a children’s illustrator, and they realize a good illustrator is a good illustrator, whether he’s doing adult books, children’s books, doesn’t really matter,” she said.