Before there Emily Strange ... before The Nightmare Before Christmas, there was Edward Gorey. And while many were first introduced to Gorey when Academy Award Winning director Derek Lamb animated his quirky and whimsical characters for the opening to PBS' MYSTERY!, (in 1980) his works and notoriety really began much earlier; in 1953, with his work, The Unstrung Harp. In fact, it is well known that the works of Tim Burton were largely influenced by Gorey's pen & ink drawings.

Both a writer and a fine artist, his work was ethusiastically collected before his death in 2000 and is highly coveted and prized today. Although he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible," Gorey studied art for one semester at the Chicago Art Institute in 1943. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Gorey evan had a successful run in theatre with the Broadway production of Dracula, for which he designed both the sets and costumes; winning a Tony Award for the latter.