FIRST EDITION OF THE CHAS. ADDAMS MOTHER GOOSE, INSCRIBED BY CHARLES ADDAMS

ADDAMS, Charles. The Chas. Addams Mother Goose. [New York]: Windmill Books, (1967). Folio (9-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches), original green cloth, original dust jacket. $1500.

First edition of Addams' first book for children, wonderfully illustrated in both color and black-and-white, inscribed on the first page: "For Peter, Chas Addams."

"Fans of the Addams Family creator and New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams are sure to savor the deliciously twisted take on nursery rhymes in The Charles Addams Mother Goose… the work trumps tradition, spicing up the original verse with offbeat illustrations" (Publisher's Weekly). "Addams specialized in a bizarre brand of comedy founded on the inexplicable in nature and the antisocial in humanity… Although he sold cartoons to many magazines during the 1930s and 1940s, Addams is most closely associated with The New Yorker, where his macabre sense of humor became a fixture. That magazine bought its first Addams cartoon in 1935" (ANB). Novelist Wilfrid Sheed remembers Addams as "a tall, laconic man, with a head he might have drawn himself and a voice straight out of Casket and Sunnyside, the mortician's manual." Addams' prototypical American family, described by Sheed as "an American classic, a Halloween version of Norman Rockwell and Grant Wood," inspired a hit television series and two movies.

Book fine, price-clipped dust jacket near-fine with only minor rubbing and toning to extremities. A desirable inscribed copy.