Ghoulish Acquisition No Mystery to University Libraries

A large and important collection of works by idiosyncratic illustrator, designer and writer Edward Gorey has been donated to Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library by Andrew Alpern (ARCH'64). Numbering more than 700 items, the collection includes nearly every edition of every work published by Gorey, in addition to illustrations for dust jackets and magazines, original drawings, etchings, posters and design ephemera. By any measure, this is a major gathering of Gorey's work. Born in Chicago in 1925, Gorey attended Harvard after World War II, and then became an illustrator for Doubleday Anchor in New York City. At the same time, he began writing and illustrating his own distinctive works, in a wittily ghoulish style that evoked a fin de siecle atmosphere. He also illustrated books by such literary masters as Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, John Updike and Charles Dickens. He died in 2000.