All I Want for Christmas Is... (4)

All I Want for Christmas Is... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And she'd love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get! So if you want to make your own blog post about it, please link up at Danya's site.


Here's mine:

The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas by Edward Gorey



Edward Gorey's first book in 25 years, this is a classic work for that magnificently morbid master. The plot revolves around one Edmund Gravel, an Edwardian Scrooge whose attempt to slice a stale fruitcake unleashes an assortment of guilt-inducing ghosts. There's the Spectre of Christmas That Never Was, who directs our hero's attention to a cowering orphan in a graveyard (along with some other low-key bits of pathos: "In the high street of the village Reverend Flannel lost his tuning-fork.") The Spectre of Christmas That Isn't also chips in with a kidnapping, a domestic dispute, and a return to the aforementioned graveyard.

I love Edward Gorey's drawings. And would love to have this book under my tree this Christmas.