That Holiday approaches, with only Halloween and (U.S.) Thanksgiving standing in its way, and I’m already getting Christmas cards. Well, not serious Christmas cards, but antique cards from one correspondent and super-cutesy cards from another. And then I came across John Updike’s playful The Twelve Terrors of Christmas, with drawings by Edward Gorey (most recent posting on Updike on this blog here; on Gorey, here).
Updike’s text was first published as a “Shouts and Murmurs” column in the New Yorker of December 21st, 1992. Paired with the Gorey drawings, it was published as a book in December 1993, in its first trade edition in December 1994 — both editions from Gotham Book Mart in New York (now, alas, defunct). A revised edition appeared in 2006 from Pomegranate Books in San Francisco, and that’s the one I’m reproducing here.
(There’s also a German translation, Die Zwölf Schrecken der Weihnacht.)
October 23, 2011 at 11:06 am |
These are really fun. We just sold a copy of this book to a very excited Gorey fan.
October 24, 2011 at 2:07 am |
About the same time Roz Chast did one of her multiple-panel cartoons for the New Yorker showing the 12 warnings signs of Christmas (play on a 50s/60s TV ad for the n warnings signs of cancer.).
December 23, 2013 at 1:30 pm |
Reblogged this on Little Miss Perfect and commented:
Memoir Monday later. For now, one of my favorite Christmas books!