Addams was best known for his macabre cartoons that appeared in The New Yorker, for whom he also did the occasional cover. His Addams Family cartoons were the basis for a hit TV series and two successful feature films.
Addams was a mild mannered man with a wicked but gentle mind. The following is from the 1954 dj notes on Homebodies:
"Charles Addams was born in Westfield, New Jersey, forty-one years ago and attended Colgate University, The University of Pennsylvania, and Grand Central School of Art in New York City. His work, almost in its entirety, has been published in The New Yorker for the last twenty-two years and has resulted in three previous books: Drawn and Quartered, Addams and Evil, and Monster Rally. He works mostly in New York City in what looks like an unsuccessful private eye's office. Practically nothing is accomplished in his house at Westhampton Beach on Long Island. He has owned a series of sports cars and collects medieval crossbows. Addams daydreams almost constantly and, in his own view, is generally quite lazy."
In addition to those listed above, his most famous books would have to include:
Black Maria ("muh rye uh" - the nickname for the police paddy wagon shown on the dj), Favorite Haunts, The Groaning Board, Nightcrawlers, Creature Comforts, The Charles Addams Mother Goose, the scarce Dear Dead Days, and Afternoon in the Attic, the dj of which provided the photograph above.