The Gashlycrumb Tinies

It's bleak, it's black, it's morbid: the very image of macabre is this, Gorey's tiny masterpiece. In just 28 short frames (including the iconic title page), "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" chronicles the tragic deaths of 26 children. It's easy to write this work off as appealing to the black-fingernailed set, but this is a wryly funny work which does what the best macabre fiction does: blends despair with laughter (the kind of laughter you can't stop even though you know you should).

My favourite frames are those in which the manner of death is almost unspoken: the child reaching her hand up to open a door, unaware of the bar-room brawl on the other side; the inquisite effete young boy gazing at a package, and so on. If nothing else, this is a show more work of sublime inventiveness. show less

The Gashllycrumb Tinies is the antithesis to instructive & safe picture books. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths in rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black and white illustrations that emphasize the banalness of death. Look, I think instructive works are important for children but I also think life and the world is a scary place. We should shield them from the specter of death. I think Gorey was a mastermind for creating this little, sarcastic but important picture book.

I would hesitant to call this little book a children’s book. Rather, I think it is better intended for adults who may wish to relive their own long past encounter with alphabet books but with a mature, if deadly, content. The poor children listed in this poem meet their ends in a startling variety of methods, each accompanied by a superb illustration. It’s not your toddler’s alphabet book!

This is a marvelous, illustrated book, ostensibly for children, but whoa…it is an alphabet of how children died:

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,
B is for Basil assaulted by bears

And all the way to:

Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in,
Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.

The accompanying illustrations are as eerie and disturbing as the text



Please note the doll.

I very much want to own a copy of this book and want to seek out his others. I know…says something rather questionable about me, but can’t help it. I loved this.

"Why are you making me read this?" my seven-year-old niece asked in a shriek. "This is about kids getting killed in different ways!"

"It's funny!" I laughed. " Keep reading!"

"I don't even know what some of these words mean! You are a terrible aunt!"

"Read to me!"

And darned if this isn't the book Karis remembers best of all regarding the summer she visited her dizzy Aunt V.V. in Birmingham. The tradition of passing on warped literature to younger generations continues.

A ghastly little treat that brings new friends together. Just do it. Give this book to someone you're just getting to know- use it as a litmus test of sorts to see if he's as twisted as you are. Gorey's poetic litany of death will quickly weed out those you might wish to know from those you do not. How do I know? A new friend at a new job gave this to me fifteen years ago, and it was instant kismet.

This is a small, dark gem. Morbid, macabre and yet not coldhearted. The poem is simple (in all but the occasional choice of a wonderfully obscure word, the Gorey trademark) but memorable, and the illustrations show great technical skill coupled with a sharp eye for arrangements. Can anyone look at Neville and not feel his bottomless (and apparently quite fatal) ennui in their heart?

Not for everyone, though...