The Shadowy Writer Edward Gorey Is Having His Day in the Sun

Edward Gorey (one of my favorite writers) is getting popular, several years after his death.

From a piece in the New York Times...

Opinions differ about why Gorey — whose name increasingly serves as shorthand for a postmodern twist on the gothic that crosses irony, high camp and black comedy — is casting a longer shadow these days. Mr. Handler attributes Gorey’s growing popularity partly to the sophisticated understatement of his hand-cranked world, a sensibility that stands out sharply against the exuberant vulgarity of our age of jeggings, “Bridalplasty” and “Jackass 3D.” “That worldview — that a well-timed scathing remark might shame an uncouth person into acting better — seems worthy to me,” Mr. Handler said.

Undoubtedly such romanticized visions of a more decorous, dapper past, which also inform the neo-Victorian and neo-Edwardian street styles of goths and steampunks, have as much to do with escapism as historical fact. But accurately or not, such subcultures see in Gorey’s work an invitation “to return to a time of gentility,” to quote the promoters of the annual Edwardian Ball, a celebration of Gorey.

In contrast, some fashion designers see Gorey’s anachronistic use of historical references as perfect for our age of mash-ups and remixes. The neo-Victorian couturier Kambriel, whose shows have featured Gorey-inspired sets and models reciting Gorey limericks, said that in her designs, as in Gorey’s tales, “the propriety of the past” is infused with the “playful mischief and irreverence” of the present.