The D'Oench Family's Copy of The Chas Addams Mother Goose

An interesting copy of The Chas Addams Mother Goose (New York: Windmill Books, 1967) came up on the AbeBooks platform this past May, offered for $700 by a Middlebury, Vermont, bookseller named—I kid you not—Browsing Is Arousing. The book was described as signed and inscribed by Charles Addams with an original drawing of a hockey player. The only seller image, alas, was a tiny thumbnail of the front dust cover which only got blurrier when enlarged.

The Chas Addams Mother Goose

AbeBooks listing accessed May 11, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Charles-Addams-Mother-Goose-DRAWING-INSCRIPTION/32414355675/bd

I was quite naturally intrigued by all this but I was
unwilling to commit $700 to this book as I sometimes
do in my Sight Unseen ventures. This time I wanted
to see this hockey player to make certain it was the
genuine work of Addams. The seller complied with my
request for an image, explaining that the endpaper
was a deep blue and that he had eliminated the color
from his image.


The handwriting and signature struck me as genuine, as
did the drawing. I was delighted to see that the hockey
player is none other than Pugsley of the Addams Family.
Addams signed it in the year of publication. So I went
ahead and bought the book, taking it off the AbeBooks
market: 

Here then are my own images of the book. Write if you prefer thumbnails. 

05290

Arthur Rackham: An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, From The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

In 1929, George G. Harrap & Co, Ltd., published a splendid new edition of Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. With this volume, Harrap introduced the practice of setting aside some ten "special copies" with original drawings produced by Rackham that did not appear in the edition. Recently, Peter Harrington brough copy no. 2 to the market. Rackham's original drawing illustrates Goldsmith's An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog from Chapter 17. Priced at over $28,000 US, it found a buyer in less than a week.

Endpapers

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks listing as priced on May 12, 2026

Sold!

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks listing ended by May 17, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Vicar-Wakefield-RACKHAM-Arthur-illus-GOLDSMITH/32444214230/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook_high

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks item description

05286

William Steig: Marriage in the Balance

Another original New Yorker cartoon by William Steig, this one from 1969, was sold by Second Story Books on May 17. It had been collected by Neil and Susan Sheehan, she a writer for the magazine. One imagines they both appreciated the singular perspective on marriage the artist expressed in this drawing. 

William Steig
Original art
The New Yorker, November 22, 1969, p. 57

William Steig's signature

The price was $500. It was quickly sold.

William Steig
AbeBooks listing ended May 17, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/ORIGINAL-1969-NEW-YORKER-CARTOON-Signed/32447225940/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook#&gid=undefined&pid=1

The drawing looked great in print.

William Steig
The New Yorker, November 22, 1969, p. 57

William Steig
Original art
The New Yorker, November 22, 1969, p. 57

With cartoons by Edward Koren and William Steig

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1969-11-22/flipbook/056/

* * *

The Motion Picture Association of America introduced its voluntary film rating system in November of 1968. The four original ratings were G (for general audiences), M (for mature audiences), R (restricted, persons under age 16 not admitted without a parent or guardian), and X (those under 16 not admitted). Edward Koren's cartoon, on the page opposite the Steig, provides the artist's take on the new ratings one year in.

"It looks like an ⓧ rating to me."

Edward Koren

The New Yorker, November 22, 1969, p. 56

05271

William Steig: Headstrong Husband

A 1970 New Yorker cartoon original by the great William Steig remained in the collection of Neil and Susan Sheehan for well over five decades, it seems. Then, along with a few other Steig drawings of theirs, it appeared suddenly on the market last weekend and was sold within twenty-four hours. At least we got to see it before it passed back into obscurity.

William Steig
Framed, original art
The New Yorker, January 10, 1970, p. 20

William Steig's signature

The price was $500.

William Steig
AbeBooks listing ended May 17, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/ORIGINAL-1970-NEW-YORKER-CARTOON-Signed/32447228712/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=img

Careful readers may have noticed that this week's posts include no fewer than three Steig drawings featuring disembodied heads. Coincidence? Not exactly. Yesterday's post was a variation on this same theme as Steig worked through the idea in his New Yorker submissions. As for Tuesday's post with that knight raising the severed head, well, these things happen.

Oh, yes. Here's how today's drawing looked in The New Yorker:

William Steig
The New Yorker, January 10, 1970, p. 20

William Steig
Framed, original art
The New Yorker, January 10, 1970, p. 20

With drawings by William Steig and Charles Saxon

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1970-01-10/flipbook/020/

* * *

It can be no accident that the simple, direct contours of the emotionally overwrought Steig drawing are contrasted on the page opposite with the lush tones and genteel manner of the cartoon by Charles Saxon, who here is conscripted to play superego to Steig's id, if you will. 

"It seems to me that you've simply got to be for
or against sex these days."
Charles Saxon
The New Yorker, January 10, 1970, p. 21

So there you have it: a cartoon depicting surreal, raw anger and one with politicized, unsexy talk of sex, both spanning a single spread in The New Yorker back in January of 1970. 

By the way, I don't recall any other New Yorker artist so casually having his character self-decapitate as Steig has done here. For that matter, who else has resorted to this Saxon trick of placing a face at a dinner party between the candles in a candelabra? For the cartoonists, it's all about the faces.

Ah, there are such riches to be found in these back issues.

05270

William Steig: The Scolding That Doesn't End

From the collection of Neil and Susan Sheehan comes an imaginative and absurd New Yorker drawing by William Steig. Published in 1969, the drawing was listed online this past weekend by Second Story Books and was promptly sold.

William Steig
Original art
The New Yorker, November 8, 1969, p. 167

William Steig's signature

The work was offered on AbeBooks for $500. 

William Steig
AbeBooks listing ended May 17, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/ORIGINAL-1969-NEW-YORKER-CARTOON-Signed/32447222280/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=readmore_low

William Steig
AbeBooks item description

The original art has sustained considerable toning, but the image appears forever young on the pages of the magazine. Not the same can be said for Steig's couple.

William Steig
The New Yorker, November 8, 1969, p. 167

William Steig
Original art
The New Yorker, November 8, 1969, p. 167

With a spot drawing by Mario Micossi and a cartoon by William Steig

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1969-11-08/flipbook/166/

* * * 

"The Art World" spot drawing
Mario Micossi

Note:  For those who remember William Steig chiefly as the creator of Shrek!, that children's book wasn't published until 1990, twenty-one years after this drawing.

05269

Milt Gross: In Response to a Mislaid Letter

Here's a little souvenir for a fan, Donald, from cartoonist Milt Gross. The AbeBooks seller Peruse the Stacks identifies the two figures as Dave Tchitchik and J.R. the Wonder Dog, characters from Dave's Delicatessen, Gross's newspaper comic strip. (In a Gross animated short, J.R. the Wonder Dog appears with Count Screwloose, from another of the cartoonist's strips.) Dave's Delicatessen ran between 1931 and 1935, allowing us to approximately date this card. Gross apologizes for some delay, as Donald's "letter got mislaid."

"H'ya / Donald /ol' kid/ This is a /little late / but your letter / got mislaid / Sincerely / Milt Gross"

Milt Gross
AbeBooks accessed May 7, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/Original-Cartoon-Dave-Tchitchik-J.R-Wonder/32440806438/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=img

Milt Gross
AbeBooks item description

05260

Arthur Rackham: The Little Mermaid's Home Life

London publisher George G. Harrap gave us an edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales in 1932 featuring illustrations by Arthur Rackham. A signed edition was issued of five hundred twenty-five copies, five hundred of which were offered for sale. The first nine of these included original illustrations by Rackham; eight of these were for sale to the public.

Copy eight is today on the market from Whitmore Rare Books, Inc., of Pasadena. It contains an original illustration which Rackham has titled The Little Mermaid's Home Life. The book is priced at $37,500. 

Me, I'm just browsing.

Pouring tea underwater must be a neat trick. Ditto for keeping sugar cubes from dissolving. Anderson's mermaid has some distinctly British tastes.

Spine

The limitation page

Title page

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks listing accessed March 28, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Fairy-Tales-Signed-limited-edition-original/32414564551/bd

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks item descritpion

05246