Edward Gorey’s Illustrated Covers for Literary Classics

Spooky Treatments of Kafka, Dickens, Conrad, and More

By Emily Temple, LITERARY HUB

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April 13, 2018

Between 1953 and 1960, before he was a household name as the master of the cutely macabre, Edward Gorey worked as a book designer and illustrator for Doubleday Anchor. During his tenure, he designed some fifty book covers (and in some cases, drew inside illustrations) for their new paperback series, which was aimed at “serious” readers and students. (He also illustrated and designed for lots of other writers’ books outside of the Doubleday gig, of course, in addition to writing and illustrating over a hundred of his own.) As collector Lance Casebeer wrote, “there is a haunting thematic consistency about the Gorey-drawn covers.

Nearly always there is an implied relationship between a “character of innocence”, often depicted as being apart from a group and a “man in black” character. Occasionally this dark embodiment is represented as a mansion (The Wanderer) or sinister statue (The Secret Agent). The best of these covers demonstrate the same whimsical morbidity found in Gorey’s narrative works delineated in his meticulous crosshatch style reminiscent of Nineteenth Century book illustration. They are true pendants to the larger body of his work.

Below, some of Gorey’s best book covers for literary classics—other than his own, of course.

Edward Gorey’s first cover for Doubleday Anchor: André Gide’s Lafcadio’s Adventures, 1953Cover and illustrations by Edward Gorey, Doubleday, 1953Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1953Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1953Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1953Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1953Edward Gorey, Doubleday Hardcover edition, 1953Cover by Edward Gorey, Modern Library, date unknownCover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1954Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1955Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1955Cover by Edward Gorey, Dolphin Books, date unknownCover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Vintage Russian Library, 1957Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1958Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1958Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1958Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1958Cover by Edward Gorey, Capricorn, 1958Cover by Edward Gorey, 1959Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1959Edward Gorey, Doubleday Hardcover edition, 1960Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1960Edward Gorey’s Looking Glass Library Hardcover edition, 1960Cover by Edward Gorey, Vintage, 1961Cover by Edward Gorey, Doubleday Anchor, 1964Cover by Edward Gorey, London House & Maxwell, 1964Cover by Edward Gorey, Vintage, 1966Cover by Edward Gorey, Harper & Row, 1972Illustrated by Edward Gorey, 1973Cover by Edward Gorey, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982Cover by Edward Gorey, Signet Classics, 1984

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Emily Temple

Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.

 https://www.emilytemple.net/