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Wall Street Journal

‘From Ted to Tom' Review: Mail From Edward Gorey

One afternoon in 1974, Tom Fitzharris was walking along a Manhattan street when he spotted the artist Edward Gorey—'instantly recognizable,' he recalled later, 'in his fur coat, long beard, and sneakers.' Gorey had attracted admiration for his arresting, comically sinister artwork, published in books such as 'The Doubtful Guest' (1957), and more readers had encountered his macabre illustrations via the 1972 collection 'Amphigorey.' Recently Gorey had puckishly responded to a note from Mr. Fitzharris and provided a book inscription. Now the younger man introduced himself. Their talk turned to the literary obscurities they both loved, and soon Gorey—known as Ted to his friends—invited Mr. Fitzharris to stop by his apartment and borrow a book. In 'From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey,' Mr. Fitzharris recounts this meeting and the unusual friendship that it set in motion. The story is a preamble to his extraordinary collection of the letters Gorey sent, mostly from his summer home on Cape Cod. When the first letter arrived, its envelope was decorated with a typically whimsical Gorey cartoon of a puzzled-looking dog on the windowsill of a house. On the reverse, a near-twin canine perches the peak of a rooftop. Both dogs sport a large initial 'T'—one, presumably, for Ted, and the other for Tom. More letters and charmingly decorated envelopes, lovingly reproduced here, followed. The next two dozen posed the cooperative dogs in various attitudes: holding banners displaying the recipient's name, batting tennis balls or balancing on twin swings. Further missives displayed more familiar Gorey types, scowling men and pained beauties dressed in 19th-century splendor. Mr. Fitzharris writes that Gorey was 'the best-read person I ever met.' Most of the letters came with a quotation—the epigrams were from writers ranging from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus to the English novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett, each one rendered neatly in Gorey's carefully hand-lettered style. The letters themselves were brief typewritten accounts, often melancholic in tone, about Gorey's life in Cape Cod: 'It is very wet and grey, like the inside of my head.' Wherever they came from, these envelopes suggest that it was the perfect climate for growing the strange, beautiful flowers of Gorey's imaginary world.