Elephant House: Or, The Home of Edward Gorey

Feast your eyes on this intimate photographic tour of Edward Gorey’s strange and wonderful house while you are treated to fresh biographical insights and warm reminiscences by a longtime Gorey confidant and photographer, Kevin McDermott. Relatively few people had the opportunity to visit the enigmatic Edward Gorey in his home, and among those who did, even fewer were permitted to see the entire house. Although Gorey was a kind and openhearted man, he was also a private man, usually preferring the company of his cats to that of his two-legged acquaintances. As is true for most of us, our environments reveal much about who we are. That is certainly the case with Edward Gorey. His house in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, was filled with his multifarious collections of objects, from books and bottles to finials and rings, stuffed animals and rocks. He arranged his clutter in an order that made sense only to him. McDermott’s photographs present Gorey’s curious tableaus with tasteful, artistic flair. Includes heretofore unpublished works by Gorey and an introduction by renowned writer John Updike, an ardent Gorey fan.

Edward Gorey

Artist and author Edward Gorey (American, 1925–2000) is beloved for the boundless imagination and sharp humor exhibited in his more than 100 published works. Gorey was also a set and costume designer for innumerable theater productions, including a staging of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for which he won a Tony. He had a profound affection for literature, film, ballet, and animals. Cats and other odd creatures appear in many of his crosshatched illustrations. His humorously unsettling drawings of vaguely Victorian innocents facing unfortunate ends became familiar to a wide audience after appearing in the opening credits of the PBS television series Mystery! Gorey’s Cape Cod home, a veritable cabinet of curiosities, is now a museum celebrating his life and work.