“Elegant Enigmas: the Art of Edward Gorey” is the current exhibit at the Portland Public Library and it is entrancing. I was introduced to Mr. Gorey back in 1954 – his book, “The Unstrung Harp” was given to me as a graduation present by a college friend with a sense of humor similar to mine. It concerns Mr. C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass, who resides in his home, Hobbies Odd, near Collapsed Pudding, Mortshire, and who is struggling to write a book. I have since acquired many more of Gorey’s works and even made a pilgrimage to 8 Strawberry Lane in Yarmouthport on Cape Cod, where he lived year round for many years. His home is now a museum, currently exhibiting “The Envelope Art of Edward Gorey.”

The Portland Library has done a superb job displaying all facets of Gorey’s artwork – about 180 original items have been gathered from The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust and significant private collections. These include his sketchbooks, illustrations from The New Yorker, set and costume designs for many theatre productions, and envelopes covered with his curious artwork that he sent through the mail to friends.

I loved a series of quixotic, enigmatic illustrations, four pictures depicting a man dressed in a long sweater with an “H” on it, and two girls, Rose and Mary. The four captions read, “They lived in a house covered with roses on the edge of a marsh,” “Mary struck Rose with a brown china doorknob she had already found and killed her,” “She had Marsh bury her in a field known as the Rabbit’s Restroom,” and “They must have been contaminated for he died in agony during the night.” Another wonderful illustration, titled “The Galoshes of Remorse,” shows four well-dressed young men, one with a paper airplane, one a yo-yo, another juggling and the last playing mumblety-peg. Underneath is the caption, “Frivolity at the edge of a Moral Swamp hears Hymn Singing in the distance and dons the Galoshes of Remorse.”

Gorey was born in 1925 in Chicago, served in the Army from 1944-46, and graduated in 1950 from Harvard, where he majored in French. He had only one semester of formal art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but spent his entire life creating his own version of what he called “literary nonsense.” His characters were almost always pictured in Victorian or Edwardian settings and often exposed his own fondness for fur coats, tennis shoes and cats. He won a Tony for best costume design in the Broadway production of “Dracula” in 1977, but he is perhaps best known for his animated credits for the PBS Mystery series.

Scarborough library literature series

The Friends of Scarborough Public Library have begun a yearly literature series – this first year, four programs focusing on the mystery book have been scheduled under the title, “Murder They Wrote.” Paula Keeney and Ann Whetstone, proprietors of the Mainely Murders Bookstore in Kennebunk, presented the first program on an October Sunday afternoon at the library. Neither Paula nor Ann are from New England, never mind Maine, but both have been lovers of mysteries all of their lives, and when they retired to Maine two years ago, and wanted to do something more than sit in rocking chairs and knit, they decided to open a used mystery book store in the barn/carriage house behind their 1790s federal-style home where they preside over a stock of more than 10,000 used books.

They like to “talk mystery” to their patrons, even those who don’t buy a thing, and can discuss everything from the classic Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, and Dorothy Sayers, to the “noir” writers, Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane to the “cozies” by M. C. Beaton and Lillian Jackson Braun, to spy novels by Alan Furst, to the Maine writers Paul Doiron, Gerry Boyle and Julia Spencer-Fleming, to foreign authors Henning Mankell and Asa Larsson from Sweden – even “humorous mysteries” by Lawrence Block, Simon Brett or Jasper Fforde!

We learned about their website (www.mainelymurders.com) and about their newsletter, with reviews by both Paula and Ann, new releases, and customer favorites. We learned about the website www.stopyourekillingme.com that lists hundreds of authors by the first letter of their last name and goes on to describe their detectives, their locales, their awards, ant their genres. Would you like to read a mystery that takes place in Jidda, Saudi Arabia? Their location index gives you the name of author Zoe Ferraris – she has written two mysteries starring Katya Jijazi, a forensic scientist, and Nayr Sharqi, a Palestinian Bedouin desert guide!

The next Friends program, Sunday afternoon, Nov. 18, will feature Kate Flora, Maine native and a former assistant attorney general. In 2007, her book “Finding Amy” was nominated for the Edgar, but I prefer her books that star Detective Joe Burgess of the Portland Police Dept.

New theater in town

Good news – Mad Horse Theatre Company has moved to South Portland, to an old wooden school building, built in 1873, located in Ferry Village – so convenient for those of us who live south of Portland. Their first play of the season is “November” by David Mamet, and it was the perfect choice for this presidential election year. Whether you label it a farce or a screwball comedy, it is loaded with slapstick humor and witty banter and a wildly improbable plot. Brent Askari played his role perfectly, a frantic president, determined to get himself re-elected despite lack of support and money from his party. Other players are a lesbian speechwriter who wants to get married to her partner, a representative of the Turkey Association who will pay almost any amount to have his turkeys pardoned by the president before Thanksgiving, and a Micmac Indian chief who wants to build a casino on Nantucket Island on Federal preservation land. Amazingly, the play ends on an uplifting note – the audience left the theatre with a sigh of relief – the president has seen the error of his petty ways, there is hope for his future.