Charles Addams has been delighting New Yorker readers with his macahre cartoons for over 40 years and he has reached a larger international public through the Addams Family TV series and the numerous collections of his drawings with titles like Drawn and Quartered, Addams and Evil, Monster Rally and most recently Favourite Haunts. In a rare interview, recorded in his eerie Manhattan eyrie, he talks to PHILIP FRENCH about his family background, the influences upon his work, his collection of medieval crossbows, and other things. followed by an interlude