The Iron Tonic
1969 book by Edward Gorey
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The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley is a surrealist country-house mystery by Edward Gorey that presents a series of unresolved clues. The work features Gorey's characteristic fine-lined, 19th-century engraving style.
| |
| Author | Edward Gorey |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley |
| Illustrator | Edward Gorey |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Surrealist fiction |
| Published | 1969 |
| Publisher | Albondocani Press |
| Publication date | 1969 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 14 panels |
The work consists of 14 illustrated panels with accompanying rhyming text written in iambic pentameter. The narrative depicts a remote manor house inhabited by elderly and infirm residents.
The work is dedicated to the memory of Gorey's maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey (1834–1907).
Publication
Literary reception
Wim Tigges described the book as "a compilation of hardly related couplets," in which nonsense objects "are seen to be falling unaccountably out of the sky." Tigges notes it uses a device commonly used in Gorey's writing, "the unexplained recurrence of an irrelevant object".[2]
