The Melancholy Deaths of Edward Gorey's Children

Legendary author-illustrator Edward Gorey -- most famous for animating the timeless intro to PBS' Mystery! -- never had any children of his own, though he drew plenty of them. Delving into his complete works for a project recently, it dawned on me how my impression of this prolific writer had been cemented by my familiarity with just one or two of his books -- like The Gashleycrumb Tinies, a deliciously morbid, alphabetical catalog of 26 children's deaths. As it turns out, this is fairly representative of the fates of children throughout Gorey's work -- they nearly always meet a tragic end. Having gone through most of his books over the weekend, I wanted to share some of Gorey's most striking (and sometimes shocking) panels involving kids -- many of them creepier and more morbid than I had ever given Gorey credit for being.