Edward Gorey. Your children are gray and lack enthusiasm. They have ridiculous names such as Clara or Fanny or Titus (can one be haunted by a name?). You throw them beneath trains, from windows, into mires. Your children catch incurable diseases. They forget to eat. They have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Edward Gorey. You illustrate dying children for our entertainment. If you were still around you'd probably have no trouble getting a permanent seat on a comedy panel show.
Edgar Allan Poe. A lot of grim shit happened to you. You coped by writing a lot of grim shit. I see what you did there.
H P Lovecraft. You gave birth to Cthulhu, a sort of octopus with ideas above its station and some kind of gunk which makes people barmy. Well done for having what is most likely a truly original idea (I'm ignoring the name and its Greek origins - I guess the octopus story was a hard sell until you lent it a little old school credibility).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A drug addict with serious mental health issues. You wrote about a big seagull and sinister sailors smelling like death. I can't find the bit in your biography where it says you lived in Blackpool.
Mary Shelley (nee Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin). Your mom was centuries ahead of her time in terms of women's lib and sexual shenanigans. When her chips were down she tried to drown (herself). She failed. She popped you out then she died. About 150 years later Alanis Morissette wrote the song Ironic. I wonder if you haunt iPods, forcing that song to play over and over despite the shuffle option being set? When Shelley threatened to top himself if you didn't love him, did this seem insensitive to you? Or was it comforting in an odd way that you didn't like to admit? Your sister traveled to Wales to kill herself. WTF? Shelley's ex (he left when she was pregnant to be with you) topper herself in the River Serpentine. Did you ever suspect that suicide was contagious? Did you ever imagine a semi-clad Kenneth Branagh as your doomed scientist, wrestling a nude Robert de Niro in a pool of amniotic fluid? Funny old world ain't it?
