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Title: The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0-15-100415-3 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 31 October, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.94 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hilarious
Comment: "The Haunted Tea Cosy" shows Gorey's esoteric humor at its best. Loosely based on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," we follow Edmund Gravel through a series of affecting scenes rendered in flat pen and ink, many involving wallpaper and other absurd Edwardian commonplaces. In the end he builds a mountain of fruitcake and carries a celebration "to the very edge of the unseemly." Fans of Gorey will treasure this addition to the canon, and those unfamiliar with his brilliant "Amphigorey" collection may begin to see what the fuss is about by reading this offbeat gift book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Amusing diversion for Christmas
Comment: Three ghosts, a recluse and an initial apparition. Dickens, right? Wrong: Edward Gorey does his own take on "Christmas Carol" in "The Haunted Tea Cosy." Delightfully verbose and filled with Gorey's surreal drawings, this is a picture book that adults will adore.
Recluse Edward Gravel is going about dreary tasks before Christmas. Then sudden an enormous insectile creature leaps from beneath the tea cosy. (Never mind what a tea cosy is) It is the Bahhum Bug, which has come to "diffuse the interests of didacticism." To escort the Bahhum Bug and Mr. Gravel, three subfuse but transparent personages appear to show him the Christmas That Never Was, The Christmas That Isn't, and The Christmas That Never Will Be. They show him distressing scenes around the grey town of Lower Spigot. It's written in a wry, twisted style, this book includes delightfully dour illustrations by the late and much lamented Gorey.
Tired of relentless holiday cheer? Looking for a dash of Halloween's darkness in the chirrupy holiday season? Then check out "The Haunted Tea Cosy," and then carry on to "the very edge of the unseemly"!
Rating: 4
Summary: Gorey gone wild
Comment: There is a curious subgenre of psedo-Victorian British macabre writing penned by Americans with little or no ties to Mother England. Lemony Snicket is the most recent example, though the patron saint of the style is the indelible Edward Gorey. In Gorey's "The Haunted Tea-Cosy", we find a very oddly written story made with more than its fair share of humor. Even the title is funny. How many Americans own tea-cosies today, I wonder. And is the plural of cosy "cosies" or "cosys"? Such answers will not be found in this book. It is still worth a gander.
The plot, such as it is, follows a somewhat "Christmas Carol"ish venue. In it Edmund Gravel is enjoying his yearly fruitcake and letter-writing when a large Bahhum Bug leaps from under Gravel's tea-cosy to proclaim, "I am here to diffuse the interests of didacticism". I wish more characters in books would say this. The bug and Gravel are joined by three spirits that show him (in this order) Affecting Scenes, Distressing Scenes, and Heart-Rending Scenes. These scene include things like Alberta Stipple returning home to find the wallpaper in her drawing room gone. In the end Gravel decides to throw a party (yay) and the show ends with some suggested pornographic dealings (possibly leading into Gorey's more disturbing story "The Curious Sofa").
Gorey is very much an adult's picture book author. Kids will probably not be too terribly entranced by his fine pen-and-ink drawings or his cumbersome words. But he's the best, Gorey is. No one writes of disaffected despair more lightly or amusingly. This book won't exactly become a Christmas classic, but its worth a perusal when you find yourself on a overcast Sunday in your home with nothing to do.
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Title: The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0151003084 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Work by Ogdred Weary by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0151003076 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0151003130 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation for the False Millennium by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0151005141 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Epiplectic Bicycle by Edward Gorey ISBN: 0151003149 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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