American writer and illustrator Edward Gorey was BOTD in 1925. Born and raised in Chicago, he joined the Army during World War Two, then studied at Harvard, befriending queer writers Frank O’Hara, Alison Lurie and John Ashbery. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, he worked as a book illustrator in New York, working on editions of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, The War of the Worlds and T. S. Eliot‘s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. He published his first self-written and illustrated story, The Unstrung Harp, in 1953. He went on to produce over 30 books, typically featuring ominous narratives with a Victorian Gothic aesthetic. Notable titles include The Doubtful Guest, about a strange penguin-like creature who haunts an aristocratic family home and The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a Gothic picture-book describing the gruesome deaths of children, one for each letter of the alphabet. He had a second career as a set designer, winning a Tony Award for a 1977 Broadway revival of Dracula. Gorey lived for most of his adult life in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and was extremely secretive about his personal life. When asked about his sexuality in a 1980 interview with the Boston Globe, he replied “Well, I’m neither one thing nor the other particularly. I suppose I’m gay. But I don’t really identify with it much. I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed…. I do not spend my life picking up people on the streets.” He died in 2000, aged 75. His work has been hugely influential on American literature, especially Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events novel series. His aesthetic also inspired a Nine Inch Nails music video, an album produced by the Kronos Quartet, the musical trio The Tiger Lilies and the films of Tim Burton.