''The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley'' is a surrealist country-house mystery—that is, a series of clues that do not add up to a solution—written and illustrated by

Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for books by other w ...

. It was published in 1969 by Albondoncani Press in a limited edition of 226 copies. It was republished for the trade market by

Harcourt Harcourt may refer to: People *Harcourt (surname) * Harcourt (given name) Places Canada *Harcourt Parish, New Brunswick * Harcourt, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community * Harcourt, Ontario, a village *Harcourt, Newfoundland and Labrad ...

, Inc. in the form of a small, hardbound book that is illustrated on both front and back covers. Dedicated to the memory of the author's maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey (1834–1907), and written and illustrated by Gorey in his characteristic fine-lined, 19th-century-engraving style, the work comprises 14 panels of illustration and rhyming text in

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambi ...

. It tells the story of an eerie, melancholy manor whose inhabitants are either old or unwell.

Literary reception

Wim Tigges described the book as "a compilation of hardly related couplets," in which nonsense objects "are seen to be falling unaccountably out of the sky." Tigges notes it uses a device commonly used in Gorey's writing, "the unexplained recurrence of an irrelevant object".

References

1969 books Books by Edward Gorey {{Poetry-collection-stub