Can you explain the ascendance of Ogdred Weary?

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

There’s a clever thing called Google Analytics which tells me exactly how many people have looked at this blog. Because I’m a narcissist, I check it most days and I was surprised and delighted to find that after my last post, the numbers rocketed up.

Naturally, I assumed that I’d tapped into a vast and devoted Sesame Street fan base. But Google Analytics is so very clever, that it was able to tell me that the hits had all come from people in the USA googling “Ogdred Weary”, one of Edward Gorey’s pseudonyms, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. (Click here to have a look.)

If anyone in America can tell us why this is, please tell us! Was it a crossword clue, a reference in a TV programme...? There’s a sweepstake going in the Hoipolloi office so do put us out of our misery. Email david@hoipolloi.org.uk

If you read the post, you’ll know that Gorey used the pseudonym Ogdred Weary for his “pornographic work” The Curious Sofa. And yes... there was a hit from someone searching for porn. “Pornographic theatre video”, to be precise. The mind boggles.

A pornographic work by Ogdred Weary

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assitant, Hoipolloi)

"Alice was eating grapes in the park when Herbert, an extremely well-endowed young man, introduced himself to her."

What better way to liven up a Monday morning than with some titillating quotations from Ogdred Weary's "pornographic work" The Curious Sofa?

"Downstairs the three of them played a most amusing game of Herbert's own invention called 'Thumbfumble'."

"Ogdred Weary" is, of course, an anagram of "Edward Gorey", the maverick writer and illustrator whose book The Doubtful Guest Hoipolloi have adapted into a rather wonderful play. (You can find out a bit more about the eccentric Mr. Gorey in one of my previous posts here.)

The Curious Sofa is Gorey's only "pornographic" work and retains all the charm and playfulness of the rest of his oeuvre. Gorey's only teasing us by putting the word "pornographic" on the book's cover. Although every page is illustrated in his trademark style, there's nothing too salacious in view. But that's not to say our imagination won't run wild...

"To beguile the tedium of the journey, Albert read aloud from Volume Eleven of the 'Encyclopedia of Unimaginable Customs'."

Don't forget that Hoipolloi's production of The Doubtful Guest is back on tour in the autumn. It's not quite as naughty as an Ogdred Weary book but it's still great fun and The Guardian were kind enough to say that it "captures all the Victorian pastiche, fantastical imagination and ominous air of Gorey's original."

All the tour dates are here and tickets are on sale now! You can also see some video previews of the show here.

"Still later, Gerald did a terrible thing to Elsie with a saucepan."