Product Description

Perhaps one of his most autobiographical works, "The Unstrung Harp" is a look at the literary life and its 'attendant woes: isolation, writer's block, professional jealousy, and plain boredom.' But as with all of Edward Gorey's books, "TUH" is also about life in general, with its anguish, turnips, conjunctions, illness, defeat, string, parties, no parties, desuetude, fever, tides, labels, mourning, elsewards. Finally, "TUH" is about Edward Gorey the writer, about Edward Gorey writing "The Unstrung Harp". Originally published in 1953, it's a small masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165918 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-16
• Format: Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

About the Author
Edward Gorey is one of the most renowned cartoonists of our time. His distinctive and unsettling work has appeared on many New Yorker covers, and in almost a hundred successful books of his own. He has also illustrated books by John Updike, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear and Samuel Beckett. 'The dark, appallingly funny works of Edward Gorey are finally being published in Britain. Not before time. A writer and artist of genius.' Independent on Sunday 'Malevolent and brilliant.' Big Issue

Customer Reviews

Gorey's First Book and Masterpiece
This is a reissue of Gorey's first book, which has much more text and a more conventional and linear storyline than many others that followed. However, don't be put off. All the Gorey trademarks are here in full bloom: the illustrations are ravishing in their detail, the text is very funny and absurd, and the story about the agonies of creativity is wonderfully comic in its depictions of the writer's life. This is my favorite Gorey book, bar none.

Wonderful book, bothersome edition
This book is surely among Edward Gorey's finest. However, I was extremely disappointed to discover that the text of the story, originally hand-lettered by Mr. Gorey, has been set in an utterly non-descript typeface. A poor choice, hopefully on the part of editors. The story itself is marvelous; still and all, some of the charm is diminished when "Collapsed Pudding" is written on a computer and transferred to a page, rather than written out in the author's inimitable style.