[BOOK REVIEW] Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey

Title:  Amphigorey Too

Author:  Edward Gorey

Genre: Horror / Fantasy


Year Published: 1975


Year Read: 2012


Series: Amphigorey #2

Publisher: Perigee Trade

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 8+ (Death, Violence and Disturbing Imagery)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

EDWARD GOREY’S MOST DISTURBING STORIES PART TWO!

After reading the first volume of Edward Gorey’s “Amphigorey,” I decided to check out the second volume “Amphigorey Too” and see if my inner Edward Gorey fan girl self would enjoy this volume as much as the first volume.  I will admit that I was amazed at this second volume as it is just as disturbing and interesting as the first volume!

In this volume, there are a total of twenty stories collected by Edward Gorey, which includes:

1)      The Beastly Baby

2)      The Nursery Frieze

3)      The Pious Infant

4)      The Evil Garden

5)      The Inanimate Tragedy

6)      The Gilded Bat

7)      The Iron Tonic

8)      The Osbick Bird

9)      The Chinese Obelisks

10)  The Deranged Cousins

11)  The Eleventh Episode

12)  The Untitled Book

13)  The Lavender Leotard

14)  The Disrespectful Summons

15)  The Abandoned Sock

16)  The Lost Lions

17)  Story for Sara

18)  The Salt Herring

19)  Leaves from a Mislaid Album

20)  A Limerick

Just like the first volume, Edward Gorey has done a brilliant job with both writing and illustrating this book!  Edward Gorey’s writing has a sophisticated tone as the stories seem to take place in Old Victorian times and the writing greatly complements the creepy atmosphere of the stories such as using words like “atrocious,” “beastly,” and “abandoned” to really bring out the creepy situations of the stories.  Edward Gorey’s illustrations are just as effective as they were in the first volume as the coloring is in black and white.  Even though the characters look a bit simplistic, the images of the characters performing horrible deeds such as an image of a baby ripping off a cat’s head, is brilliantly done as the images are not too gory.  Some of my favorite stories in this volume were “The Beastly Baby,” “The Chinese Obelisks,” “Story for Sara,” and “The Disrespectful Summons.”

~Once again…~

THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR CHILDREN!

There is a lot of disturbing content in this volume that would scare small children such as images of characters ripping animals’ heads off and children being tortured and eaten by various threats.  Also, the writing might be too difficult for smaller children to really understand since it is written in a more sophisticated manner that contains many large words like “monotonous,” “innumerable” and “interred.”  The reason why I took off half a point from this book was because some of the stories like “The Iron Tonic,” and “The Salt Herring” were a bit boring to read through and sort of slowed down the stories for me.

Overall, “Amphigorey Too” is a great sequel to “Amphigorey” as it has enough disturbing content and sophisticated storytelling that will make Edward Gorey fans drool with anticipation!  I would recommend this book to older children and teens since there is so much disturbing content (characters being killed) that would disturb smaller children.