"The rest is darkness and dismay", October 22, 2014

This review is from: The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley (Hardcover)
A strange, gloomy tale, with full-page illustrations, each explained by a rhyming couplet. Set in a snowy land, near a sanatorium, the world seems full of hazards:
"The careful stroller should beware
Of objects falling from the air"
shows a carriage clock flying across a wintry landscape.
Eels, a deceased runaway orphan, a stone....peculiar yet strangely enjoyable. ( )

The perfect book for a snowy winter's day, this is Gorey at his most macabre and bleak. Superb. ( )

Most enjoyable words and pictures. ( )

Simply, completely, utterly bleak and terrific. The pictures and the text play off each other wonderfully. ( )

With Gorey, the pictures more than make up for the text. His drawings manage to convey so much. His ability to capture the fine details, and the little elements that go into everyday things, combined with his proclivity for the gothic place him among my favorite artists. ( )