The Glorious Nosebleed

by Edward Gorey

The Glorious Nosebleed , an alphabet created with Edward Gorey’s inimitable sense of the weird and the macabre, trips from A to Z with illustrations that are both strikingly funny and a bit weird, all the way from “She wandered among the trees Aimlessly” to “He wrote it all down Zealously.” A classic of Gorey’s imaginative and darkly humorous mind.

Genres: Art, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comics, Humor, Picture Books, Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 1974

About the author

Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colourful family; his parents, Helen Dunham Garvey and Edward Lee Gorey, divorced in 1936 when he was 11, then remarried in 1952 when he was 27. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. His father was briefly a journalist. Gorey's maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist, from whom he claimed to have inherited his talents. He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. Parker School. He spent 1944–1946 in the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and then attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, where he studied French and roomed with future poet Frank O'Hara.

Although he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible", Gorey studied art for one semester at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator. From 1953 to 1960, he lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. In later years he illustrated many children's books by John Bellairs, as well as books in several series begun by Bellairs and continued by other authors after his death.

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

This goes though different scenes of people and there is a line for each and a word for the alphabet. It’s one of his good ones. There are several scenes that were very good.
“She knitted mufflers endlessly” - They are all bundled in scarves, so funny.
I can’t believe the scene for “He exposed himself Lewdly.” Ewwww.
“He ran through the hall Maniacally” that’s a good one.
I laughed at “He struck her down wilfully.”
I’m sure we have all sat through a “The piece was sung excruciatingly.” aha

Edward Gorey was twisted, no doubt about it.

I do love his artwork. He has such rich details in the pictures and his characters are so wack-a-doodle. He really brings that art-deco style out. It’s amazing the tone you can bring out with just a pen. He spent so much time on backgrounds alone.

I think this is a good one in this collection.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it delightedly, and quizzically. You know, every so often you need to read a Gorey book, and this is one of his deliciously sardonic and also darkly comic ABC books, this one focused on adverbs. It's maybe not really just for children: For the letter L he has "He exposed himself Lewdly." Very funny, sometimes forebodingly funny. And the sort of Victorian black and white pen and ink drawings? Impressively detailed.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book on this years "Halloween shelf"...Gorey always reminds me of October.

[no elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don't think i mentioned it 'round these parts, but i picked up 10+ vintage gorey books at my lesbian great aunt's house (amongst other cool stuff)

i'm not rly going anywhere with this, i just want the collective goodreads community to be jealous of my good fortune

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious. Like it says.

[Anne-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Gorey ABC Book. For the letter "L" :He exposed himself Lewdly.

[Sarah P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A somewhat nonsensical compilation of alphabetical microstories.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Gorey. Each panel has a single line describing the events. It all has a ‘-ly’ rhyme and goes through the alphabet. Aimlessly, Balefully, Clumsily… etc.

Beautiful art depicting mostly ominous scenes from Victorian life.

[Radwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my most favorite of his alphabet books. macabre and grim and deliciously gothic.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very awesome friend gifted me with this last night. I love the untold story behind each picture/sentence. The title alone is almost worth five stars. Also, this is a great book for teaching your children about the alphabet and about adverbs (and for giving them a proper appreciation for black humor, or maybe just for warping them early).

[Kerri Fairclough · Rating 4 out of 5]

L is my very favorite. And it's a little bit rapey.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grimly great.

[Frank Pounding · Rating 5 out of 5]

in 1988 i caught the nosebleed that afterward never left me.

[Jan Moens · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizaire.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Gorey could take on something as standard as the alphabet and deliver such a delightfully macabre style with lovely artistry.

[Michael Earp · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The doorbell rang Ominously"

[Sam Albala · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful Gorey book! Outlined alphabetically using funny quips throughout! I recommend this book highly.

[Danna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another little Gorey gem arrived for me today! I read it Enthusiastically.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another terrific story and glorious drawings - so enjoyable! I love the dark humor and the elegant writing - Edward Gorey is truly one of a kind!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was in the trunk Presumably.

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I went to the Edward Gorey house I bought a "mildly damaged" copy of The Glorious Nosebleed because I had forgotten I already owned a somewhat-more-than-mildly damaged copy of The Glorious Nosebleed. In fairness to myself, the copy I had was orange and the copy in the bookstore was red, so obviously they looked like two different books, and it's nice to have a red copy anyway because red is great.

The Glorious Nosebleed has nothing much to do with the nosebleed illustrated on the front cover, which does appear to be quite intense. The book is an abecedaire, much like the excellent The Gashleycrumb Tinies, except instead of the "A is for..." phrasing, each page is a sentence that ends with an adverb, and the adverbs, which are capitalized so you know they're important, go through the alphabet. They are all quite charming and silly and I started laughing actually out loud around "He fell off the pier Inadvertently" and it only got funnier from there. The illustrations are peak Gorey, with women in patterned drop-waist dresses and men in big old fur coats much like Gorey's (there even appears to be an author cameo right at the end), and lots of really exquisitely patterned carpets and wallpapers.

Reading so much Gorey in such a short period of time also gave me the itch to sketch, a thing I have not done in more than a decade, but I took a stab at it with little Darkboy Zaraz and I feel better? I've really been in quit a pit lately about not doing anything creative for months and going to the Gorey house sort of made it worse, so it was good to quit whining and do even a tiny thing.

Anyway, I just want things to be whimsical and delightful and gothy all the time; why is that so hard?

Originally posted at She read the book Avidly.

[Fredrik Strömberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second, beautiful collection of Edward Gorey's stories in Swedish, and what a great little book it is!

Gorey's eccentric and idiosyncratic combination of words and images, his unpredictable stories, which are sometimes not stories at all, and his moody, soulful drawings are a delight to behold. As with all great art, I'm immediately swept away, my mind racing to connect the dots and trying to make sense out of things that are not necessarily made to be made sense out of. For this reason, I especially liked The Willowdale Handcar, as it at least seems to contain a mystery, even though it's shrouded in mystery.

The selection is presented in chronological order, which makes sense, and seems to have been chosen to show the full spectra if what Gorey was capable of, from simple limericks to strange, almost nonsensical stories based on the alphabet. Add to this a very interesting afterword by Jonas Ellerström and of course, the faultless, elegant design by Jens Andersson, and I can't see how this book could have been any better.

Adding this to the first volume, De förryckta kusinerna from 2012 in my library, gives me great pleasure, as the similar design indicates that Sanatorium has a master plan that will see many more of Gorey's stories printed in Swedish before they are finished.

[Shahidatul Munirah Zaidun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just utterly delightful picture book for adult with one sentence then one illustration format. Like "Gashleycrumb Tinies" the text takes up sort of abecederian nature but on every last word. Every last words are adjectives.

" The creature regarded them Balefully."

The glorious are the distinctively intricate signature strokes of Edward Gorey. Love the pattern, the cross-hatching and the lines. I can go back to each illustration again and again and still get nosebleed.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of creepy.

[Bettie]

“Artists paint pictures. 
The best artists paint pictures for children's books.”

― Richard Scarry

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 56 page book from 1974 is the fifth abecedarium and follows previous alphabet books, such as The Gashlycrumb Tinies and The Utter Zoo. It is described as "An Exemplary Alphabet for Connoisseurs of Syntax, Semantics, and Subtleties," all of which fascinate me. It is a journey through realms of adverbial mayhem. Gorey's deliciously textured and faintly ominous drawings has one noticing the humor behind such lines as "She wandered among the trees Aimlessly." I think I have written such a sentence more than once in my life, and, now, I wish I could go back and change it. The book is back in print and should delight your favorite grammarian.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Gorey's take on a children's alphabet book, with each letter being represented with a picture, in his distinctive style, and one line description.

There are a few that really made me chuckle; especially, L:

"He exposed himself Lewdly"

[Allen Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply love Gorey. This piece is another alphabet book akin to The Ghastly Crumb Tinies. I particularly enjoyed the self portraits that he worked into the illustrations. To read it may only take ten minutes but you can spend hours in discovery with the illustrations.