Sale 2480 - Illustration Art, June 5, 2018

53 c EDWARD GOREY. “Ladies of the Gothics.” Cover design with transparency overlays for “Ladies of the Gothics: Tales of Romance and Terror By the Gentle Sex, Selected by Seon Manley & Gogo Lewis” (New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1975). Pen, ink, and marker on paper and celluloid. Main image measures 241x187 mm; 9 1 / 2 x7 1 / 4 inches on 12x9 1 / 4 -inch paper. Not signed but registration marks and “black” written in Gorey’s hand, lower right, and penciled notes by publisher along bottom margin. Provenance: Ex-Collection P. Matthew Monahan of Gotham Book Mart to present owner. [5,000/7,500] a beautifully executed dust jacket design exhibiting classic gorey motifs and details . The cover illustration is accompanied by a marked celluloid overlay that masks off where the cover would be printed in “grey” (in Gorey’s hand) and one where portions would be printed in blue (in another hand), lower margin, with corresponding Pantone color codes. Throughout his career, Gorey designed dust wrappers for numerous book series, the best known being the mysteries by Brad Strickland and John Bellairs. Between 1973 and 1979, Gorey created the covers for 8 of the over 20 titles by Janet Helen “Seon” Givens and Mona “Gogo” Givens, sisters who collected and published anthologies of ghost stories and supernatural tales. The Gorey designs naturally focus on mysteries, detective fiction, weird and gothic tales; all but one were written by female authors.