Gorey at the Athenaeum

 The Boston Athenaeum is a place like those small Roman shrines or temples you can visit that seem almost homey, certainly unpretentious, with statues and other ritual objects that connect the place to a long history, and where once a small priesthood or group of virgins did duty.  On the walls are paintings of old Bostonians whose names are still prominent in the Commonwealth (not to mention attached to towns and villages from Allston to Adams) and copies of classical statues of goddesses and gods.  It's still a private library and club, and hoi polloi are not admitted to the inner rooms.  But they have a small gallery, and it's now devoted to a small show of the very small pictures of Edward Gorey.

I first discovered a little Gorey volume in about 1960, when I was looking for a birthday present for my older sister.  The book was The Willowdale Handcar ("or,  The Return of the Black Doll") and I thought she'd like the funny drawings and the weird story.  Through it we went on to find "The Doubtful Guest" and "The Fatal Lozenge."  We were fans.

Pictures from all those books were in the show, and many more.  The most astonishing thing -- it's actually unbelievable till you see them -- is that the originals are the same size as the printed pictures.  They are tiny.  The delicacy of the pen work is astonishing (bring a good magnifying glass if you go.)  The checks on checked suits, the patterns on dresses!  It was like looking at a series of excellent mechanical reproductions, obviously beyond human skill at that size.

More fun lay in the drafts and notebooks.  It seems that Gorey drafted some of his things before coming up with those ininitable titles.  A typescript of verses about "the something bird" will eventually become The Osbic Bird,.  The Gashleycrumb Tinies are just Tinies in an otherwise quite full first draft of the title page.  Also -- we know that Edward Gorey (aka Ogdred Weary, Dogear Wryde etc.) was a lover of anagrams, but here was a page of tryouts for one -- and it looked just like my own similar pages, the letters worked around, checked off as used, etc.  I was thrilled.