The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas

"The Haunted Tea Cosy" shows Gorey's esoteric humor at its best. Loosely based on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," we follow Edmund Gravel through a series of affecting scenes rendered in flat pen and ink, many involving wallpaper and other absurd Edwardian commonplaces. In the end he builds a mountain of fruitcake and carries a celebration "to the very edge of the unseemly." Fans of Gorey will treasure this addition to the canon, and those unfamiliar with his brilliant "Amphigorey" collection may begin to see what the fuss is about by reading this offbeat gift book.

This is a short tale of Edmund Gavel who is visited by the Bah Hum Bug and 3 Christmas spectres. Other than the names of the ghosts there is no reference to Christmas in this strangely entertaining and delightfully illustrated little tale.

This book is a wonderfl antithesis to all the forced jollities of Dicken's beloved chestnut. Old Scrooge should only meet this Bahum Bug! Instead, the Yuletide Bug takes the dour Edward Gravel through a tour of Christmases that Never Were, Isn't, and Never Will Be, all shown in wonderfully ambiguous terms. Of course the Moral Lesson Is Learned, and Mr.Gravel learns to sheer cheer with the equally grey people of his town of Lower Spigot. But the delight is that nowhere does Gorey force the lesson on us, never do the odd little tragedies, even in cemetaries, force one to See the Real Meaning of Christmas--until we have finished the story, and even then it is a droll little moral. This is one story I intend to make a holiday standard in my family.

Mr. Gorey's unique sense of humor is sure to be appreciated for people with a taste for the subtle and obscure. This pastiche of "A Christmas Carol" finds Gorey in fine form, particularly with the irrelevant introduction of a large bug character, and the end when celebrations are carried "to the very edge of the unseemly." Wonderful! The art work, done in a style imitating the rustic wood carvings that have become common fodder in some holiday cards of late, is both Goreyan and new.

I thought it was a lovely book. Mr. Gorey is in his 70's now, and I'd like to see if anyone can do careful cross-hatching for hours on end at that age. I thought it was delightful and one of his wittiest books. And his illustrating style for this book is not new-- it resembles some of his early (pre-solo) work.