The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction
 Cover of first edition (hardcover) | |
| Author | Edward Gorey |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary nonsense, Gothic fiction, Picture books |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 1963 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Beastly Baby |
| Followed by | The Wuggly Ump |
The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction (1963) is a box set of three picture books by Edward Gorey, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, and The West Wing, each revolving around themes of death and terror, in the Gothic tradition.[1] The Vinegar Works and its three constituent books can be found in the first of the four collections comprising Gorey's work, Amphigorey (1972).
Only the second book has a narrative in any conventional sense; it follows a little girl who's lured away from her nanny by anthropomorphic insects. The Gashlycrumb Tinies (possibly Gorey's most famous work) is an abecedarium, or inscription of the English alphabet, stylised as a poem describing the deaths of 26 children, the initials of their first names corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. In this way, both of these books can be viewed as instructional, one teaching the alphabet, the other stranger danger.
The third and final book, The West Wing, however, is harder to explain. The book has no words - besides an inscription of the name, "the west wing", above a door - and is a numbered sequence of images from a possibly haunted building. Some of the images are mundane, like doors opening onto a hallway, and others ghostlier, such as a floating candle and a face outside a window, each image contributing to a moody, unsettled atmosphere. It has been said this book was written as a response to the literary critic Edmund Wilson, to whom it is dedicated. Wilson wrote letters to Gorey complaining that his pictures were a lot more impressive than his text; hence, Gorey gave him a book to review that had no text.[2][3]
Title
"The Vinegar Works" was first introduced in The Willowdale Handcar: Or, the Return of the Black Doll, published the previous year, in which the three main characters, travelling by handcar, come across the institution in their travels, after it has been ruined by an unexplained disaster.
References
- ↑ "The Vinegar Works Three Volumes of Moral Instruction by Gorey, Edward: Simon & Schuster, New York, NY - The Drowsy Owl Bookshop". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
- ↑ "Goreyana: The Vinegar Works". goreyana.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
- ↑ "Art Review: Edward Gorey at Loyola University Museum of Art - WSJ". wsj.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.