Edward Gorey, illustrator, 75

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

HYANNIS, Mass. (AP) - Edward Gorey, whose bizarre stories and
black-and-white illustrations reflected an elegantly morbid sense of humor
in books, on the stage and for television, died Saturday at age 75. He
suffered a heart attack earlier in the week, The New York Times reported
Sunday.

Gorey's costume design for the Broadway production of ``Dracula'' won a Tony
Award in 1978.

He wrote at least 90 books and illustrated 60 others. Most showed vaguely
Edwardian characters in bleak settings, reacting in prim distress to strange
situations such as the intrusion of a penguinlike, sneaker-wearing creature
(``The Doubtful Guest,'' published in 1957).

A set published in 1963 under the title ``The Vinegar Works; Three Volumes
of Moral Instruction,'' featured a grisly alphabet book, ``The Gashlycrumb
Tinies,'' in which ``A is for Amy who fell down the stairs'' and ``X is for
Xerxes, devoured by mice.''

The book was included in ``Amphigorey,'' an anthology of 15 stories
published in 1972 by Putnam, that brought Gorey's work to a wider audience.
It was followed in 1974 by ``Amphigorey Too'' and ``Amphigorey Also'' in
1983.

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