The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.’A genius book about a bookish genius’ Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate EventsThe definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.’A genius book about a bookish genius’ Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate EventsFrom The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known – in the late 1940s, no less – to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes – but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose?He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious.Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, Born to be Posthumous draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.‘Edward Gorey has been granted the most remarkable biography, one I believe he could have lived with. What was the likelihood that this singular genius could be restored, with such compassion and grace, within his whole context: Balanchine, surrealism, Frank O'Hara, Lady Murasaki, et al?’ Jonathan Lethem‘Edward Gorey's ardent admirers have long known there is something about his work one can't quite pin down. Past all reason, Mark Dery has pinned it down. A genius book about a bookish genius’ Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events‘As a perfervid Goreyphile, I was a bit leery of a biography undertaking to spell out the details of his life. Did I really want to have the mystery solved? But Mark Dery drags the pond to revelatory result, contextualising and analysing Gorey, plunging into his obsessions, dissecting his sexuality, and even examining the philosophical import of nonsense while somehow managing to leave the central enigma radiantly intact. This is an absolutely riveting book about an utterly sui generis subject’ Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home‘Knowing Gorey’s full story, done sparkling justice by Mark Dery, will only make you adore him more’ Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes‘A devoted and highly readable biography of the illustrator who – from The Doubtful Guest to The Curious Sofa – defined and embodied a world of camp, gothic hilarity’ Ben Schott, Guardian Books of the Year‘An entertaining account of an artist who liked to be coy with anybody who dared to write about him’ New York Times'The best biographies are the result of a perfect match between author and subject, and it's relatively rare when the two align perfectly. But that's the case with Born to Be Posthumous Dery's book is smart, exhaustive and an absolute joy to read. He has given Gorey the biography he has long deserved' NPRMark Dery is a cultural critic. He coined the term ‘Afrofuturism,’ popularised the concept of ‘culture jamming,’ taught at Yale and NYU, and has published widely on pop culture, the media, and on the mythologies (and pathologies) of American life. His books include Flame Wars, a seminal anthology of writings on digital culture; Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the end of the century, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, and the essay collection, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams. Like Gorey, his mission in life is ‘to make everybody as uneasy as possible.’• FIRST TRUE BIOGRAPHY OF A CULT FIGURE: Today, the reclusive and legendarily eccentric Edward Gorey, who died in 2000, is more famous than ever, the subject of an obsessive fandom whose ranks have been swelling steadily since his death and are now approaching mainstream proportions. Gorey has influenced a generation of writers and artists, including Neil Gaiman, Tim Burton, Lemony Snicket, Ransom Riggs and Alison Bechdel. Incredibly, no true biography of this fascinatingly eccentric, mysterious genius has been published. Clearly, the time for such a book is now.• EXCLUSIVE RESEARCH AND INTERVIEWS: This truly is the definitive book on Gorey, and will likely remain so for decades. Stemming from a piece in the New York Times, Dery has spent eight years working on the book, and has conducted exclusive interviews with Gorey’s family, along with John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui.• CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED: We have some fantastic pre-pub quotes from the likes of Jonathan Lethem, Alison Bechdel and Caitlin Doughty. Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, has called Born to be Posthumous ‘a genius book about a bookish genius’. We’re also hoping for an endorsement from Neil Gaiman.
Publicat de: HarperCollins Publishers