CHARLES ADDAMS, (AMERICAN 1912-1988)
Simon and Schuster, 1981
First Edition, First Printing A large very clean book (11.25″ x 8.5″) with a spectacular example of a signed original full length sketch of Uncle Fester (the actual sketch is a full 7.5 x 5.25 inches) opening his coat to expose his underwear and a shirt with a dog picture. A superb association copy signed and dedicated to “For Fleur from Chas Addams”. (We have had letters between Charles and Fleur showing much correspondence occurring throughout the 1970’s documenting this lovely association between the two). Please note, that original final published drawing by Charles Addams can sell in excess of $50,000, and recently a similar size sketch drawing of Uncle Fester just sold at auction for $5,000. Scarce signed book with an original drawing with a superb association.
The book is in near fine condition with some foxing to a first 2 internal pages. The book has quarter orange spine cloth in green paper boards. The book is in near fine condition with sharp corners and no edgewear. The very lightly nicked jacket is in near fine condition. The Addams spectacular original drawing of Fester covers most of the large 11.25″ page as shown in the images.
In 1935 Addams was hired by The New Yorker as a regular cartoonist. The pay was modest—just $35 per cartoon—but the magazine allowed him to explore his voice and imagination as well as hone the dark humor that would come to define his work. His famous, “creepy and kooky” Addams Family, later adapted for television and film productions. He demonstrated an appreciation for the macabre at an early age. He had a deep fascination for coffins and skeletons, as well as a good practical joke. “We had a dumbwaiter in our house,” he later recounted, “and I’d get inside on the ground floor, and then very quietly I’d haul myself up to grandmother’s floor, and then I’d knock on the door, and when she came to open the door, I’d jump out and scare the wits out of her.”
Addams’s mind went to dark, ghoulish places few cartoonists would allow themselves to venture. His popularity extended to some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Cary Grant wanted to meet the man who called himself “A Defrocked Ghoul,” as did Alfred Hitchcock, who once showed up at Addams’s New York home unannounced to see the cartoonist in the flesh. The “Addams family” cartoons delighted in turning upside down our assumptions about normality and its relationship to good and evil. Charles Addams tapped into the vein of American gothic that has a touch of paranoia about it, seeing behind every comforting façade the uncomfortable truth about the duality of human nature. But where Gothic literature usually combined these themes with romance, Addams made the horror hilarious: disturbing, but at the same time friendly, identifiable, and acceptable.
The book includes page after page of Adams’ fantastic artwork and represents an album of his infamous cartoons.
Extremely rare with an original drawing and in the original dust jacket. A perfect exceptional gift for a Horror collector!
