Last month, we featured the whimsically macabre, Tim-Burtonesque work of mid-century illustrator Edward Gorey, who was an oddball character in his own right. Today marks the release of The Strange Case of Edward Gorey — an appropriately uncommon and colorful portrait of the eccentric artist by Gorey’s best friend, Alexander Theroux.

With his unique access to Gorey’s extraordinary wit, intelligence and creative genius, Theroux delivers a brief but lively read that’s equal parts loving memoir and fascinating cultural collectible.

It is a falsehood that Edward Gorey refused to give interviews. Nevertheless, to those acquainted with his hundred or so menacing little books, written as if by moonlight, the very thought of tracing out this eccentric artist (for Gorey was a solitary) might somehow have seemed to recapitulate to a nervous heart the monstrous dread felt in approaching the unholy chambers of the demented Ambrosio or the trap-doored of the satanic Caliph Vatek of the Abassides.” ~ Alexander Theroux