For much of his life, Edward Gorey had a thing for fur coats.
While living in New York City during the 1950s, he became notorious for attending the ballet in full-length coats and Converse All Star sneakers. In her recent memoir, Just Kids, Patti Smith recalled that when she worked at Scribner’s book store, she regularly saw him browsing the stacks cloaked in fur.
Throughout Gorey’s more than 100 hundred illustrated works, many of his tall, dark and handsome men wear double-breasted pelts with high collars that framed their bearded chins. Toward the end of his life, he owned 21 such coats, made from all kinds of critters—minks, fisher cats, otters, lynx, coyotes and even a tanucki.
But the author and illustrator was also a great friend to his feline companions, of which he had many. At some point in his dotage he thought twice about his sartorial choices, and sought to make amends to other animals as well. One act of contrition was to open parts of his home to a family of local raccoons, who eventually took up full-time residence in his attic. As for the coats, they went into storage, and the life-long bachelor willed his entire estate to organizations devoted to the welfare of animals, such as the Xerces Society, the Bat Conservation International Foundation and the Animal League of Boston (Cape Cod branch).
Last December, Bloomsbury Auctions in New York put the remaining collection of coats on the auction block with the proceeds to be distributed by the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust. Many of the coats were estimated to be worth between $1,000 and $1,500, but most went for more than twice that amount.
