The Edward Gorey Personal Library immediately fascinates fans of twentieth century bookstores and those curious about the vanished method of book collecting in the twentieth century that this collection documents. By studying the library, you can trace Gorey's intellectual and practical journey as book designer, theatre designer, illustrator artist author, pop culture junkie, and voracious reader of many subjects.
Gorey acquired 19th and 20th century print books in his collection from bookstores, from rare book dealers like Andreas Brown of the Gotham Book Mart. He exchanged them with friends like Allison Lurie and Peter Neuemeyer as a form of intellectual conversation. He inherited them, and received them as gifts from authors likes James Marshall, editors, and other bibliophiles. He used his books as an artist's, designer's, author's reference library from which he drew inspiration and source material.
The subjects he collected include African art, art, art history, ballet, biography, British novels, children's literature, detective fiction, fiction, general literature, games, gardens, gothic literature, history, hymns, illustration, India Japan, mystery, poetry, French culture, French history, and French literature and novels.
These are just a few of the authors' works which are found in the Gorey Library.
Jacob Abbott; J.R. Ackerly; Harold Acton; Louisa May Alcott; Hans Christian Andersen; Victor Appleton; Gillian Avery; Helen Bannerman; Djuna Barnes; Nina Bawden; Arnold Bennett; E.F. Benson; James Blish; Guy Boothby; Lucy M. Boston; Charlotte Bronte; Wilhelm Busch, Randalf Caldecott; Italo Calvino; Lewis Carroll; Willa Cather; Agatha Christie; Wilkie Collins; Maurice Stewart Collis; Walter Crane; Franklin W. Dixon; Theodore Dreiser; Maria Edgeworth; Juliana Horatia Ewing; Eleanor Farjeon; J.S. Fletcher; Ronald Fraser; David Garnett; Stella Gibbons; Michael Francis Gilbert; George Gissing; Rumer Godden; Kenneth Grahame; Grahame Greene; Donald Hamilton; Patrick Hamilton; L.P. Hartley; Herge; Inez Haynes Irwin; Erich Kastner; Carolyn Keene; Andrew Lang; Edward Lear; William LeQueux; Gason LeRoux; E.V. Lucas; Walter de la Mare; Louis Marlow; Richard Marsh; William Mayne; Herman Melville (sets); Leonard Merrick; Mrs. Molesworth; M. Pardoe; Eden Phillpotts; Beatrix Potter Anthony Powell; John Rhodes; Edward and Vita Sackville-West; Walter Scott; Mary Sinclair; Robert Lewis Stevenson; Margaret Sutton; Sylvia Townsend Warner; Anthony Trollope; Henry Williamson; E. H. Young.
