A Limerick

by Edward Gorey

Genres: Poetry, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels

4 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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 3 out of 5]

Short and sweet. 4 panes each with a line in the Limerick. Poor little Zook. It did get a chuckle out of me. This is the end of Amphigorey Too. I have enjoyed it and would love to own it one day. I will be getting the next volume soon.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 panels of a group of kids shooting Little Zooks via sling-shot over a house into a pond (most likely to his demise).

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in Amphigorey Too, wanted to separately rate the story.

[Kest Schwartzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect. Simply perfect

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. And the reason I should never be responsible for children.

[Wetdryvac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precisely what it says it is, and well executed in all regards.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very, very short, and only a book in the sense that it may have been printed between covers. This is a four page poem. It's cute enough, and I particularly like the rhyme with rectory.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't like Gorey's limericks in collection--they grow too mean--but as a standalone work, elaborated into a micro-comic, one is much more tolerable. And this one rhymes trajectory/rectory, which is flawless.

[Rick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rereading Edward Gorey 2023. A Limerick barely merits a review, it seems so slight. But in 5 lines, Gorey manages to create so much atmosphere.

Favorite quote:
....And into a lily choked pond.

[Canavan · Rating 2 out of 5]

✭✭