Thursday, November 5, 2009

Murder Ink

Edward Gorey contributed illustrations for many books and periodical publications. Two books which Mr. Gorey made contributions to were Murder Ink (Workman Publishing, New York, 1977) and Murderess Ink (Workman Publishing, New York, 1979).



Both of these volumes are dedicated to fictional murderers, murderesses and the authors who wrote about them. Each of the numerous chapters is a short essay on the many facets of crime writers, their characters, and their inspirations. For Murder Ink, Mr. Gorey drew a title page image and has two mentions within the book. Murderess Ink has the first appearance of the famous Neglected Murderesses postcard series.

Neglected Murderesses is a collection of twelve ruthless women - are all killers who disposed of their victims in novel ways. Unfortunately, the images are printed rather poorly in this book and the illustrations have been downsized to fit the pages. In the photo to the right, you can see a postcard printed at the correct size for the original artwork. These enterprising ladies will appear in no less than three publications of their own...more to come!

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