Books like The World of Edward Gorey

Though I've been attracted to Gorey's art for some time now, I couldn't have told you before I read this book why I was. According to the interview here, Gorey adores Dickens (especially his lesser-read works) and, according to interpretation offered in the essay, in his art he both celebrates and parodies the unrealistic, melodramatic innocence of characters like Little Nell and those of other 19th-century authors, such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's Sara Crewe and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. These are all characters I loved as a child, so something in his art must speak to that part of me.Of course, Gorey's interests and influences are much more far-reaching and eclectic than merely the ones I've cited above. I didn't know much at all about the man himself before reading this, and now I do. For instance, he's designed sets (some of those marvelous illustrations are included here) and he loved Balanchine, never missing a performance during his long tenure with the NY City Ballet. Loved this quote: "(Gorey claims that his leaving New York to live permanently on Cape Cod was spurred by George Balanchine's death in 1983, a decision that has been termed an act of aestheticism worthy of Oscar Wilde.)" On a side-note, it seems to me that Lemony Snicket had to have been greatly influenced by Gorey.