Description

Pen and ink on paper, 9¾ x 4¾ inches (sheet). Signed by the artist in monograph (“EG”). Original crop marks in corners. Original white correction fluid evident at various points of image. Paper very lightly soiled and mildly toned.

Original art for an alphabetical Christmas message – presumably a Christmas card – showing a precariously balanced tower of small stuffed animals and wood letter blocks reading, from top to bottom, “M C & H N Y” (for “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”), with a block at the bottom bearing the monographic logo for Looking Glass Library originally designed by Edward Gorey.

Looking Glass Library was founded by Gorey’s former colleagues in the Anchor Books department at Doubleday, Jason Epstein and Celia Carroll, in 1959. Gorey was recruited the same year to design book covers for the imprint, and he joined officially as its art director in February 1960. “The idea” of Looking Glass Library, Gorey recalled in a 1999 interview with Steven Heller, “was to do for children’s books what Anchor had done for the parents” – that is, to newly publish classic and underappreciated literary works for modern new audiences in an affordable but attractive package. LGL published 28 books in this vein between 1959 and 1961.

We have found no evidence that the present holiday greeting for LGL was ever published.

Fine Print

Yay! No fine print