Today’s Google doodle commemorates the birthday of author and illustrator Edward Gorey. Gorey, whose odd but simple stories and gothic illustrations remain quite popular today, designed book covers early in his career. His iconic artworks grace the covers of a series of paperbacks published by Anchor Books. The wide-ranging series includes authors from Chaucer to Henry James to (perhaps more appropriately for Gorey) Franz Kafka, and features two late novels by Thomas Wolfe.
Fans of Gorey work will recognize his work on the covers of these editions of The Web and the Rock (Anchor, 1953) and You Can’t Go Home Again (Anchor, 1957). Both are from the Thomas Wolfe Collection in the North Carolina Collection.
