The Curious Sofa

For the album, see The Curious Sofa (album).

The Curious Sofa

Author	Edward Gorey (Ogdred Weary)
Illustrator	Edward Gorey (Ogdred Weary)
Cover artist	Edward Gorey (Ogdred Weary)
Publisher	I. Obolensky
Publication date	1961
ISBN	978-0-396-07861-6 (1980 reprint)
OCLC	1943444
Preceded by	The Fatal Lozenge: An Alphabet
Followed by	The Hapless Child

The Curious Sofa is a 1961 book by Edward Gorey, published under the anagrammatic pen name Ogdred Weary. According to the cover, the book is a "pornographic illustrated story about furniture". Reviews of the book clarify that the illustrations are not overtly sexual, although innuendos and strategically deployed urns and tree branches abound. The New York Times Book Review described it as "Gorey's naughty, hilarious travesty of lust". Gorey has stated that he intended to satirize Story of O.[1]

The story appears in Gorey's 1972 anthology Amphigorey.

The German translation was banned in Austria in 1966 on the grounds of "This publication is therefore suitable for deleteriously influencing the moral, mental and health development of young people, particularly by stimulating lustfulness and misleading the sex drive."[2]

References

Notes

1. Gardner, Paul (September 19, 1977). "Theater: A Pain in The Neck". New York. p. 68.
2. "Das Geheimnis der Ottomane" Zürich 1981

Other sources

• Gorey, Edward (2001). Wilkin, Karen (ed.). Ascending peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey : interviews. Harcourt. p. 39. ISBN 0-15-100504-4.
• Wim, Tigges (1987). Explorations in the field of nonsense. Rodopi. p. 78. ISBN 90-6203-699-6.

External links

• The Curious Sofa in the Internet Archive