![]() The West Wing is harder to explain than its predecessors in the collection. The story is meant as a warning against strangers. It follows a little girl who is alone outside and is abducted by anthropomorphic insects in a black motorcar, who then whisk her away and present her to the "Insect God" as a human sacrifice. The Insect God is the only book in the collection with a clear-cut narrative. (For instance, "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs." and "D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.") The book's instructive quality is in teaching the alphabet using a mnemonic device. It is stylised as a poem describing the deaths of 26 children, with the initials of their first names corresponding with each consecutive letter of the alphabet. The Gashlycrumb Tinies (possibly Gorey's most famous work) is an abecedarium, or inscription of the English alphabet. The Vinegar Works and its three constituent books can be found in the first of the four collections comprising Gorey's work, Amphigorey: Fifteen Books (1972). ![]() The set was written with the intention to "instruct, appall and amuse", in the Gothic fiction tradition. The books included in the set are: The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, and The West Wing. It was first published by Simon and Schuster in 1963. The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction is a set of three heavily illustrated books by Edward Gorey that was sold as a set encased in an illustrated slip-case. ![]()
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