The World of Edward Gorey by Clifford Ross

We shake hands, and I marvel that such a large hand, as thick as a bricklayer's, covered with heavy brass rings, is capable of such delicate, subtle art. He is dressed casually in jeans and a sweatshirt, and wears an ornate Ethiopian crucifix around his neck. He's a tall, bald man with a neatly trimmed white beard. Instead, it is a quaint small wood-shingled Cape set on the edge of the village green.Īs I drive up, Gorey sits on the steps of his sunny porch, doodling in a notebook. I am pleasantly surprised to discover that Gorey's house is not the dark turreted Victorian mansion I had imagined - with creaking doors, cobweb-draped chandeliers, and the occasional coffin. We arranged to meet at his home and quickly drive off to a nearby diner for lunch. Gorey's spare black-and-white world seem to meet their demise in frighteningly funny ways and I shudder to think what designs he might have for this callow reporter. I am driving to meet Edward Gorey, the artist whose dark pen-and-ink cartoons match his nefarious name.

Yellow leaves are falling onto the antique shops and clapboard houses of this pleasant seaside town.