One writer who had an impact on the work of Edward Gorey was Agatha Christie. Christie is famous for her 66 detective novels, and Gorey has mentioned on multiple occasions being a fan of her work and ability to add suspense and mystery to her stories. While their subjects may differ, they share the ability to leave a reader wondering and make them feel like they’ve entered an entirely new world.

From an early age, Gorey enjoyed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, otherwise known as his pen name Lewis Carroll. Learning from Carroll, both writers understood the typical rules of writing and storytelling very well, but it was their ability to add strangeness and weirdness that made their work special. He also affected Gorey through the use of bizarre circumstances around children, seen in Carroll's use of Alice as the composed heroine child, or Gorey's troubled children in several of his stories.

Edward Lear and Gorey share so many similarities that it would be impossible not to mention him. Lear was mostly known for his limerick nonsense and illustrations. Both Gorey and Lear were able to pair illustrations with funny and dark limericks, and it was this parallel style for which Gorey became famous. His work appears to be a precursor to that of Edward Gorey's and cleared the way for Gorey's work to shine later on.

As the creator behind the illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, John Tenniel's metal print illustrations were a large impact on the artwork of Edward Gorey. Like the work of another illustrator E.H. Shepard(Winnie the Pooh), his fine line work and scratchy style from this 19th-century metal printing method inspired the cross-hatching which we later see in nearly all of Gorey's illustrations throughout his career.

Edward Ardizzone was a cartoonist and illustrator who incorporated watercolor to create his artwork. His work would go on to greatly influence the early covers that Edward Gorey had to do working for Doubleday Anchor and other publishers. Though his style was less colorful than Ardizzone's, Gorey incorporated minimal colors using this watercolor technique to create his unique style of using few colors to compliment his beautiful illustrations.

Max Ernst is a multifaceted painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet who had a large influence on the artwork of Edward Gorey. Both attacked conventions and traditions of art, Ernst with his paintings and Gorey with his illustrations. They also had immense knowledge and appreciation for technical artwork just as much as they challenged what traditional artists were. His influence on Gorey didn't stop there either as Gorey has directly credited Ernst's character Loplop for being the inspiration behind one of his most iconic characters Figbash.