Edward Gorey was born in Chicago in 1925. After one semester at the Chicago Art Institute, he spent three years in the US Army. He was a set and costume designer for Broadway, an illustrator for periodicals including the New Yorker and for books including T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. He was himself the author of many classic, amusing, disturbing works of genius, including The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Object Lesson and The Other Statue.