Google has created a Google Doodle celebrating author and illustrator Edward Gorey‘s 88th birthday.

Gorey established his artistic career working as a book designer at Doubleday Anchor. From there, he went on to write and illustrate more than one hundred books. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms; two of them, Ogdred Weary and Mrs. Regera Dowdy, are anagrams of his actual name.

Here’s more from The Huffington Post: “With a distinct style, often described as ‘whimsical’ and ‘grim’, Gorey’s pen and ink illustrations often depicted animals, as is shown in the Google doodle. The doodle also pays homage to Gorey’s most famous book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which depicts the deaths of 26 children, each representing a different letter of the alphabet.”

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The classic science fiction author Jules Verne received his own Google Doodle today–U.S. readers will see an image of the Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea submarine’s portholes as they search with Google.

Verne was born on this date in 1828. According to UNESCO’s Index Translationum database, Verne is the third most translated author in the world–only topped by Walt Disney and Agatha Christie.

Other Google Doodles have honored Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie, and Ahmad Shawqi. (Via Publishers Weekly)

Disney has stopped production on a projected $150-million adaptation of a classic Jules Verne novel, a script co-written by novelist Michael Chabon (pictured, via).

According to the LA Times, Walt Disney Studios head Rich Ross axed the project that began under his predecessor; an adaptation entitled: “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” The film studio had already spent a reported $10 million assembling the crew for the movie. Towards the end of the article, an anonymous source speculated that production could eventually resume.

Here’s more from the article: “Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,’ had just written a draft of the Burbank studio’s forthcoming production ‘John Carter of Mars,’ an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel and the first live-action film to be directed by Pixar Animation Studios director Andrew Stanton.” (Via.)

The debate about whether Google Book Search is a good thing or a bad thing is a topic that the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin handles very well, but for those in the latter camp, they likely won’t appreciate Google’s newest invention, which will let people plot on maps references to places they find in books. ItWorldCanada reports that book entries in Google Book Search may include a section called “Places mentioned in this book.” The section includes a map from Google Maps with pins indicating places included in the text. Below the map is a list with the name of the places, linked to the pages in which they are mentioned and an excerpt from the text.

“When our automatic techniques determine that there are a good number of quality locations from a book to show you, you’ll find a map on the ‘About this book’ page,” wrote David Petrou, a Google software engineer, in the official Book Search blog, on Thursday. “We hope this feature helps you plan your next trip, research an area for academic purposes, or visualize the haunts of your favorite fictional characters.” At the moment, you can do that with public domain classics like Jules Verne‘s AROUND THE THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS and Leo Tolstoy‘s WAR AND PEACE. But as expected, Google plans to expand this feature further.