Background

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, to Theodor Robert and Henrietta (Seuss) Geisel. His paternal and maternal grandparents were German immigrants. His father was a successful brewmaster and later took to managing public park system.

Education

Geisel was educated at Springfield Central High School in 1917 - 1921. He then graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925 and did graduate work in English literature at Lincoln College, Oxford. Geisel left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927.

Career

Moving back to America after his studies in 1927, Geisel started submitting his work at various magazines, publishing houses and advertising agencies. His first ever published cartoon appeared on July 17, 1927 in The Saturday Evening Post under the pen name, Seuss. The positive response for his debut work led him to relocate to New York where he found a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine - Judge. His first ever printed work for Judge appeared in the October 22, 1927 issue.

Geisel was soon employed by Standard Oil for their advertising department. His ad for Flit, a common insecticide caused a nation-wide stir and made him famous. The catchphrase 'Quick Henry, the Flit' not only became the talk of the town, it spawned a song and was used as a punch line. The Flit campaign earned him much fame and sooner, his work started appearing in acclaimed magazines such as Life, Liberty and Vanity Fair. He even started churning out advertising campaigns for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, Narragansett Brewing Company and many other companies.

Geisel's first-hand experience with children's book was when he was offered a contract by Viking Press to illustrate a collection of children's sayings called Boners. Though the book was not a commercial success, his work was well received. Furthermore, it gave him his first breakthrough in children’s literature.

The increased income allowed him to travel freely. It was while returning from one of the ocean voyages that he was inspired to write a poem which eventually became his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Interestingly, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected by around 27 publishers before his friend agreed to publish it with Vanguard Press.

Before US involvement in World War II, Geisel penned four more books, including, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, The King's Stilts, The Seven Lady Godivas and Horton Hatches the Egg. In 1934, he produced a 30-page booklet titled Secrets of the Deep. Given the major demand, following year in summer he released a second volume of Secrets. In 1937, he sculpted Marine Muggs and designed a flag for the Seuss Navy.

At the time of World War II, he started contributing for the New York City daily newspaper, PM. Working as editorial cartoonist, he turned to political cartoons drawing about 400 cartoons in two years. He was supportive of President Roosevelt's handling of the war. In 1942, since he was too old to be drafted for World War II, he took up the profile of a commander at the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Force. He indulged in making animated training films and drawing propaganda posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board.

During the 1950s, Geisel also published a number of illustrated short stories, mostly in Redbook Magazine. The year 1954 was a revolutionary one and one marked with important milestones for him. Life magazine’s report of illiteracy among school children and their lack of interest to read led to a challenging task for Geisel as he was instructed to write a book using a list of 250 words that were important for first graders to know. Not the one to bow down, he came up with a children’s book, The Cat in the Hat which drew ground-breaking demand and was a historic success. The book was a major success and cemented his position in children’s literatures.

Following the breakthrough success of The Cat in the Hat, he came up with other books which replicated the success story and became popular all over. Some of the books include, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and so on. Later, he penned numerous books in his newly found beginner’s style and the elaborate style that he employed early on. How The Grinch Stole Christmas was one of his eminent works of the later years. The book was made into an animated film by the name, Grinch.

Achievements

• Theodor Geisel, called Dr. Seuss, is best known for authoring more than 60 children's books. His work includes several of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death. Of the ten bestselling hardcover children's books of all time, four were written by Geisel: The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Hop on Pop.
  
  Dr. Seuss's honors include two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize. The author has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the 6500 block of Hollywood Boulevard.

Works

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  • I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

    (The Cat in the Hat can read in purple and in brown, in a ...)

    1978
  • Fox in Socks

    (This rhyming romp includes chicks with bricks, chewy blue...)

    1965
  • What Was I Scared of?

    (What's a pair of empty green trousers doing standing by i...)

    1961
  • Wacky Wednesday

    (From a shoe stuck on the ceiling to tigers at school to f...)

    1974
  • The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

    (The riotously funny follow-up to The Cat in the Hat celeb...)

    1958
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

    (Grow your heart three sizes and get in on all of the Grin...)

    1957
  • The Sneetches and Other Stories

    (Handpicked by Amazon kids’ books editor, Seira Wilson, fo...)

    1953
  • I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew

    (A funny story that can be read purely for entertainment, ...)

    1965
  • Oh, the Places You'll Go!  

    (For out-starting upstarts of all ages, here is a wonderfu...)

    1990
  • Happy Birthday to You!

    (Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no o...)

    1959
  • Horton Hatches the Egg

    (Generations of children have fallen in love with Horton t...)

    1940
  • Horton Hears a Who!

    (Choose kindness with Horton the elephant and the Whos of ...)

    1954
  • Gerald McBoing Boing

    (They say it all started when Gerald was two 0 That’s the ...)

    1950
  • If I Ran the Circus

    (Young Morris McGurk's has a BIG imagination. He wants to ...)

    1956
  • Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!

    (Letters come alive on the page, as Dr. Seuss fills the al...)

    1963
  • Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You

    (A sturdy board book edition of Dr. Seuss's beloved classi...)

    1970
  • One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

    (From counting to opposites to Dr. Seuss's signature silly...)

    1960
  • Green Eggs and Ham

    (Originally created by Dr. Seuss, Beginner Books encourage...)

    1960
  • The Lorax

    (Celebrate nature with Dr. Seuss and the Lorax in this cla...)

    1971
  • The Cat in the Hat

    (Written by Dr. Seuss in 1957 in response to the concern t...)

    1957

Politics

Geisel was a liberal Democrat and a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. His early political cartoons show a passionate opposition to fascism, and he urged action against it both before and after the United States entered World War II. His cartoons portrayed the fear of communism. Geisel supported the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Views

Quotations: "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose."

"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you."

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere."

"Kids can see a moral coming a mile off."

Personality

Theodor Geisel had an unusual hobby taxidermy. He sculpt his curious characters using magnificent remains from the animal kingdom such as a horn, a bill or set of antlers. Geisel made 17 sculptured creatures that defied classical taxidermy tradition. Sculpted in the 1930’s, these unusual taxidermic animals preceded his publishing credits and became talk among more than one magazine.

Interests

• Taxidermy, sculpting

Connections

Geisel tied the nuptial knot with his long time sweetheart Helen Palmer (whom he met at Oxford) on November 29, 1927. The couple had no children. Following his wife’s death, he married Audrey Stone Dimond on June 21, 1968. Through this marriage too, he did not father any children.

Father:

Theodor Robert

Mother:

Henrietta (Seuss) Geisel

Spouse:

Audrey Geisel

(August 14, 1921 - December 19, 2018)

late spouse:

Helen Palmer

(September 16, 1898 – October 23, 1967)

Helen Marion Palmer Geisel, known professionally as Helen Palmer, was an American children's author, editor, and philanthropist. Her best-known books include Do You Know What I'm Going to Do Next Saturday?, I Was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo, Why I Built the Boogle House, and A Fish Out Of Water.

Friend:

Frank A. Vanderlip

Friend:

Art Buchwald

References

• Who Was Dr. Seuss? Ted Geisel loved to doodle from the time he was a kid. He had an offbeat, fun-loving personality. He often threw dinner parties where guests wore outrageous hats! And he donned quirky hats when thinking up ideas for books- like his classic The Cat in the Hat. This biography, with black-and-white illustrations throughout, brings an amazingly gifted author and illustrator to life.
  2011
• The Life of Dr. Seuss: A Biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel Just for Kids! He was one of the most brilliant men in the world. His books inspired millions of lives. But who was he really? This book, just for kids, will look at his childhood, education, marriage and work to see what made him who he was!
  2013
• Theodor Geisel: A Portrait of the Man Who Became Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss's infectious rhymes, fanciful creatures, and roundabout plots not only changed the way children read but imagined the world.
  2016