bio notes:
born: 2/22/1925
died: 4/15/2000
born as: Edward St. John Gorey
Writer, illustrator, and designer, noted for his arch humor and gothic sensibility. Gorey drew a pen-and-ink world of beady-eyed, blank-faced individuals whose dignified Edwardian demeanor is undercut by silly and often macabre events. His nonsense rhymes recalled those of Edward Lear, and his mock-Victorian prose delighted readers with its ludicrous fustiness. Gorey's work evoked the cozy sensibilities of childhood reading while subverting that feeling with its often grisly humor. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature