Dr. Seuss - Author, Illustrator - Biography.com » quotes “If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.” “I don't write for children, I write for people. Once a writer starts talking down to kids, he's lost. Kids can pick up on that kind of thing.” “I feel my greatest accomplishment was getting rid of Dick and Jane and encouraging students to approach reading as a pleasure, not a chore.” “I had no ability as a novelist. I spent all my time trying to get rid of extraneous words and boiling the thing down to the essentials. But a novelist's technique is putting those extraneous, nonessential things back in.” “Once in a while, I have to write something in an adult magazine. I get so frustrated; I wish I could get rid of all the garbage of excess words; I could draw what I want to say in a second.” “I'm honest enough with myself to know I wouldn't have written the Great American Novel, but I think I could have created some fine paintings.” “I don't like audiences.

I prefer to make my mistakes in private.” “I enjoy making a statement, but I don't think one has to always do so to feel worthwhile.” “Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I'm doing, I always tell myself, 'You can do better than this.'” “Let me think about it."[When asked on his deathbed if he had any final thoughts]” “All of my books are based on truth, an exaggerated truth.” “You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.” “In the interest of commerce, there's a happy ending. The other ending is unacceptable."[On his book You're Only Old Once]” “I have a feeling if I could stay out of hospitals, I might live forever.” “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don’t mind.” “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.” “You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em." (When asked about having children of his own.)” “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss - Mini Biography (TV-PG; 4:10) Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 in Massachusetts. He published his first children's book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” under the name of Dr. Seuss in 1937. He has since become a world renowned children's author. Synopsis Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He published his first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, under the name of Dr. Seuss in 1937. Next came a string of best sellers, including The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. His rhymes and characters are beloved by generations.

Early Life Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Theodor Robert Geisel, a successful brewmaster, and Henrietta Seuss Geisel. At age 18, Geisel left home to attend Dartmouth College, where he became the editor in chief of its humor magazine, Jack-O-Lantern. When Geisel and his friends were caught drinking in his dorm room one night, in violation of Prohibition law, he was kicked off the magazine staff, but continued to contribute to it using the pseudonym "Seuss." After graduating from Dartmouth, Geisel attended Oxford University in England, with plans to eventually become a professor. While at Oxford, he met his future wife, Helen Palmer, whom he married in 1927. That same year, he dropped out of Oxford, and the couple moved back to the United States. Early Career Upon returning to America, Geisel decided to pursue cartooning full-time, and his articles and illustrations were published in numerous magazines, including LIFE and Vanity Fair.

A cartoon that he published in the July 1927 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, his first using the pen name "Seuss," landed him a staff position at the New York weekly Judge. He then worked for Standard Oil in the advertising department, where he spent the next 15 years. His ad for Flit, a common insecticide, became nationally famous. Around this time, Viking Press offered Geisel a contract to illustrate a children's collection called Boners. The book sold poorly, but it gave him a break into children's literature. Geisel's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times before it was finally published by Vanguard Press in 1937. At the start of World War II, Geisel began contributing weekly political cartoons to the liberal publication PM Magazine. In 1942, too old for the World War II draft, Geisel served with Frank Capra 's Signal Corps, making animated training films and drawing propaganda posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board.

Commercial Success Following the war, Geisel and Helen purchased an old observation tower in La Jolla, California, where he would write for at least eight hours a day, taking breaks to tend his garden. He wrote and published several children's books in the coming years, including If I Ran the Zoo and Horton Hears a Who! A major turning point in Geisel's career came when, in response to a 1954 LIFE magazine article that criticized children's reading levels, Houghton Mifflin and Random House asked him to write a children's primer using 220 vocabulary words. The resulting book, The Cat in the Hat, was published in 1957 and was described by one critic as a "tour de force." The success of The Cat in the Hat cemented Geisel's place in children's literature. READ MORE: Words of Wisdom from Dr. Seuss Over the next several years, Geisel would write many more books, both in his new, simplified vocabulary style and using his older, more elaborate technique. His later credits include favorites such as Green Eggs and Ham and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

In 1966, with the help of eminent cartoonist Chuck Jones, The Grinch was adapted into an animated film. Personal Life and Later Years In October 1967, Helen, who was suffering from both cancer and the emotional pain caused by an affair Geisel had with their longtime friend Audrey Stone Diamond, committed suicide. Geisel married Audrey the following year. Theodor Seuss Geisel, best known as Dr. Seuss, died on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87, in La Jolla, California. In 1997, the Art of Dr. Seuss project was launched. Today, limited-edition prints and sculptures of Geisel's artworks can be found at galleries alongside the works of Rembrandt, Picasso and Miro. Sixteen of his books are on Publishers Weekly's list of the "100 Top-Selling Hardcover Children's Books of All-Time." In February 2015, Random House Children’s Books announced it plans to publish a new Dr. Seuss book entitled What Pet Should I Get? after the manuscript and sketches were found by the author’s widow in the couple’s home.

Videos March 2 Birthdays: Dr. Seuss 1904–1991; author of children's books By Borgna Brunner At the time of Theodor Seuss Geisel's death in 1991, his 46 children's books had sold more than 200 million copies, and his last, Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990), was still on the bestseller lists. His books, which he both illustrated and wrote, have been translated into twenty languages as well as Braille. Better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, he populated his odd and fanciful children's books with a hybrid bestiary of Wockets, Whos, Grinches, bunches of Hunches, Bar-ba-loots, red fish, blue fish, and a fox in socks. He once remarked in an interview, "If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up." His stories march forward at an incantatory, rhythmic pace, and are full of tongue-twisters, word play, and highly inventive vocabulary. The American Heritage Dictionary in fact credits Dr.

Seuss as the originator of the word nerd, which made its first appearance in his 1950 book, If I Ran the Zoo: "And then just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" His books were originally considered too outlandish to appeal to children. His first, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937), was reputedly rejected by twenty-eight publishers before it finally found a home at Random House. It was one of the company's most prescient decisions: former Random House President Bennett Cerf once remarked, "I've published any number of great writers, from William Faulkner to John O'Hara, but there's only one genius on my authors list. His name is Ted Geisel." Among his most famous books is The Cat and the Hat (1957), a story about two children who find themselves home alone with a roguish, hat-wearing feline who is a study in bad behavior.

With only 223 vocabulary words and much repetition, it was ideally suited for beginning readers and became a lively alternative to the wooden dullness of the "See Spot run" primers. And Green Eggs and Ham (1960) managed with a vocabulary of just fifty words to tell the story of a Seuss creature's relentless crusade to introduce a hapless furry character to a revolting dish. In addition to becoming one of the world's most loved children's writers, Ted Geisel worked as a political cartoonist, an advertising illustrator, and a documentary filmmaker. In addition to the pen name Dr. Seuss, he also wrote under the pseudonyms Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. He graduated from Dartmouth College, where he edited the school humor magazine, and pursued a Ph.D. in English literature at Oxford, ultimately dropping out when he decided his studies were "astonishingly irrelevant." They certainly did little to aid his phantasmagorical imagination in the creation of the environmentally conscious Loraxes and fractious Sneetches, not to mention the indescribable Zubble-wumps and ooey-gooey green Ooblecks. Dr.

Seuss claimed his ideas started with doodles: "I may doodle a couple of animals; if they bite each other, it's going to be a good book." Related Links: Dr Seuss Biography Dr. Seuss Biography The biography of Dr Seuss. Explore Seuss ... ● Dr. Seuss Biography (from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia) Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, was a famous American writer and cartoonist best known for his children's books, particularly The Cat in the Hat. He also wrote under the pen names Theo. LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. Life and Work Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He grew up at 74 Fairfield Street, an ideal location for a youngster, as it was only six blocks from the zoo where his father worked. Furthermore, 74 Fairfield was but three blocks from the library.

He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925, where he was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Casque & Gauntlet Society, and wrote for the Dartmouth Jack O'Lantern humor magazine under his own name and the pen name "Seuss." He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a doctorate in literature. At Oxford he met Helen Palmer, married her in 1927, and returned to the United States without earning his doctorate. He began submitting humorous articles and illustrations to Judge (a humor magazine), The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. One notable "Technocracy Number" made fun of Technocracy, Inc. and featured satirical rhymes at the expense of Frederick Soddy. He became nationally famous from his advertisements for Flit, a common insecticide at the time. His slogan, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a popular catchphrase. Geisel supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression by drawing advertising for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and many other companies. He also wrote and drew a short lived comic strip called Hejji in 1935.

Even at this early stage, Geisel had started using the pen name "Dr. Seuss". His first work signed as "Dr. Seuss" appeared six months into his work for Judge. Seuss was his mother's maiden name; as an immigrant from Germany, she would have pronounced it more or less as "zoice" (as it is pronounced in German), but today it is universally pronounced in English with an initial s sound and rhyming with "juice". The "Dr." is an acknowledgement of his father's unfulfilled hopes that Seuss would earn a doctorate at Oxford. Geisel also used the pen name Theo. LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards) for books he wrote but others illustrated. In 1936, while Seuss sailed again to Europe, the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Seuss wrote three more children's books before World War II (see list of works below), two of which are, atypically for him, in prose. As World War II began, Dr.

Seuss turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-wing New York City daily newspaper, PM. Dr. Seuss's political cartoons opposed the viciousness of Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of isolationists, most notably Charles Lindbergh, who opposed American entry into the war. Some cartoons depicted Japanese Americans as traitors. One of these appeared days before the internments started. Some have taken these cartoons to reflect his own negative attitude toward the Japanese people, while others have taken him to be presenting a parody of others' attitudes. In 1942, Dr. Seuss turned his energies to direct support of the U.S. war effort. First, he worked drawing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board.

Then, in 1943, he joined the Army and was commander of the Animation Dept of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces, where he wrote films that included "Your Job in Germany," a 1945 propaganda film about peace in Europe after World War II, "Design for Death," a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1947, and the Private Snafu series of very adult army training films. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Dr. Seuss's non-military films from around this time were also well-received; Gerald McBoing-Boing won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Animated) in 1950. Despite his numerous awards, Dr. Seuss never won the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery. Three of his titles were chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1947), Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). After the war, Dr.

Seuss and his wife moved to La Jolla, California. Returning to children's books, he wrote what many consider to be his finest works, including such favorites as If I Ran the Zoo, (1950), Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953), On Beyond Zebra! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957). At the same time, an important development occurred that influenced much of Seuss's later work. In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Accordingly, Seuss's publisher made up a list of 400 words he felt were important and asked Dr. Seuss to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words. Nine months later, Seuss, using 220 of the words given to him, completed The Cat in the Hat.

This book was a tour de force—it retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Seuss's earlier works, but because of its simplified vocabulary could be read by beginning readers. A rumor exists, that in 1960, Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50 that he couldn't write an entire book using only fifty words. The result was supposedly Green Eggs and Ham. The additional rumor that Cerf never paid Seuss the $50 has never been proven and is most likely untrue. These books achieved significant international success and remain very popular. Dr. Seuss went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as "Beginner Books") and in his older, more elaborate style. The Beginner Books were not easy for Seuss, and reportedly he labored for months crafting them. At various times Seuss also wrote books for adults that used the same style of verse and pictures: The Seven Lady Godivas, Oh, The Places You'll Go!, and his final book You're Only Old Once, a satire of hospitals and the geriatric lifestyle.

During a very difficult illness, Helen Palmer Geisel committed suicide on October 23, 1967. Seuss married Audrey Stone Diamond on June 21, 1968. Seuss himself died, following several years of illness, in La Jolla, California on September 24, 1991. In 2002 the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden opened in his birthplace of Springfield, Massachusetts; it features sculptures of Dr. Seuss and of many of his characters. Poetic Meters Dr. Seuss wrote most of his books in a verse form that in the terminology of metrics would be characterized as anapestic tetrameter, a meter employed also by Lord Byron and other poets of the English literary canon. (It is also the meter of the famous Christmas poem A Visit From St. Nicholas.) Abstractly, anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units (anapests), each composed of two weak beats followed by one strong, schematized below: x x X x x X x x X x x X Often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end.

A typical line (the first line of If I Ran the Circus) is: In ALL the whole TOWN the most WONderful SPOT Seuss generally maintained this meter quite strictly, up to late in his career, when he was no longer able to maintain strict rhythm in all lines. The consistency of his meter was one of his hallmarks; the many imitators and parodists of Seuss are often unable to write in strict anapestic tetrameter, or are unaware that they should, and thus sound clumsy in comparison with the original. Seuss also wrote verse in trochaic tetrameter, an arrangement of four units each with a strong followed by a weak beat: X x X x X x X x An example is the title (and first line) of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. The formula for trochaic meter permits the final weak position in the line to be omitted, which facilitates the construction of rhymes. Seuss generally maintained trochaic meter only for brief passages, and for longer stretches typically mixed it with iambic tetrameter: x X x X x X x X which is easier to write.

Thus, for example, the magicians in Bartholemew and the Oobleck make their first appearance chanting in trochees (thus resembling the witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth): Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff then switch to iambs for the oobleck spell: Go make the oobleck tumble down On every street, in every town! In Green Eggs and Ham, Sam-I-Am generally speaks in trochees, and the exasperated character he proselytizes replies in iambs. While most of Seuss's books are either uniformly anapestic or iambic-trochaic, a few mix triple and double rhythms. Thus, for instance, Happy Birthday to You is generally written in anapestic tetrameter, but breaks into iambo-trochaic meter for the "Dr. Derring's singing herrings" and "Who-Bubs" episodes. Artwork Seuss's earlier artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or watercolors, but in children's books of the postwar period he generally employed the starker medium of pen and ink, normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. Later books such as The Lorax used more colors, not necessarily to better effect.

Seuss's figures are often somewhat rounded and droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of the Grinch and of the Cat in the Hat. It is also true of virtually all buildings and machinery that Seuss drew: although these objects abound in straight lines in real life, Seuss carefully avoided straight lines in drawing them. For buildings, this could be accomplished in part through choice of architecture. For machines, Seuss simply distorted reality; for example, If I Ran the Circus includes a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy steam calliope. Seuss evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects. His endlessly varied (but never rectilinear) palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Seuss also drew elaborate imaginary machines, of which the Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count, from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, is one example.

Seuss also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur, for example, the 500th hat of Bartholemew Cubbins, the tail of Gertrude McFuzz, and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Seuss's images often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voilà" gesture, in which the hand flips outward, spreading the fingers slightly backward with the thumb up; this is done by Ish, for instance, in One Fish, Two Fish when he creates fish (who perform the gesture themselves with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of If I Ran the Circus, and in the introduction of the Little Cats in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Seuss also follows the cartoon tradition of showing motion with lines, for instance in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in If I Ran the Circus. Cartoonist's lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses (sight, smell, and hearing) in The Big Brag and even of thought, as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful idea.

Recurring Images Seuss's early work in advertising and editorial cartooning produced sketches that received more perfect realization later on in the children's books. Often, the expressive use to which Seuss put an image later on was quite different from the original. The examples below are from the website of the Mandeville Special Collections Library of the University of California, San Diego. An editorial cartoon of July 16, 1941 depicts a whale resting on the top of a mountain, as a parody of American isolationists, especially Charles Lindbergh. This was later rendered (with no apparent political content) as the Wumbus of On Beyond Zebra (1955). Seussian whales (cheerful and balloon-shaped, with long eyelashes) also occur in McElligot's Pool, If I Ran the Circus, and other books. Another editorial cartoon from 1941 shows a long cow with many legs and udders, representing the conquered nations of Europe being milked by Adolf Hitler. This later became the Umbus of On Beyond Zebra. Seuss's earliest elephants were for advertising and had somewhat wrinkly ears, much as real elephants do.

With And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1940), the ears became more stylized, somewhat like angel wings and thus appropriate to the saintly Horton. During World War II, the elephant image appeared as an emblem for India in four editorial cartoons. Horton and similar elephants appear frequently in the postwar children's books. While drawing advertisements for Flit, Seuss became adept at drawing insects with huge stingers, shaped like a gentle S-curve and with a sharp end that included a rearward-pointing barb on its lower side. Their facial expressions depict gleeful malevolence. These insects were later rendered in an editorial cartoon as a swarm of Allied aircraft (1942), and later still as the Sneedle of On Beyond Zebra. In an advertisement for NBC, a kangaroo with a baby kangaroo in its pouch is depicted talking to a man. In Horton Hears a Who, an identical kangaroo is found on the last two pages. Politics From his work, it would appear that Dr. Seuss's political views were what 20th century Americans would call liberal.

His early political cartoons show a passionate opposition to fascism, and he urged Americans to oppose it, both before and after the entry of the United States into World War II. Seuss' cartoons also called attention to the early stages of the Holocaust and denounced discrimination in America against black people and Jews. Seuss suffered from anti-semitic discrimination against himself, as he was refused entry into certain circles in his college days because of the misperception that he was Jewish. Seuss' seemingly racist treatment of the Japanese and of Japanese Americans, mentioned above, has struck many readers as a strange moral blind spot in a generally idealistic man, assuming that he intended the cartoons to depict what he believed about Japanese people rather than as a parody of the common American view of them. Seuss moved to La Jolla, California in 1948, following his years living and working in Hollywood. A widely told story says that when he first went to register to vote in La Jolla, some Republican friends called him over to where they were registering voters, but Ted said, "You my friends are over there, but I am going over here [to the Democratic registration]." Geisel had since been a lifelong Democrat.

Seuss' children's books also express his commitment to social justice as he perceived it: The Lorax (1971), though told in full-tilt Seussian style, strikes many readers as fundamentally an environmentalist tract. It is the tale of a ruthless and greedy industrialist (the "Once-ler") who so thoroughly destroys the local environment that he ultimately puts his own company out of business. The book is striking for being told from the viewpoint (generally bitter, self-hating, and remorseful) of the Once-ler himself. In 1989, an effort was made by lumbering interests in Laytonville, California to have the book banned from local school libraries, on the grounds that it was unfair to the lumber industry. The Sneetches (1961) is commonly seen as a satirization of racial discrimination. The Butter Battle Book (1984) written in Seuss's old age, is both a parody and denunciation of the nuclear arms race. The Zax can be seen as a parody of all political hardliners. Yertle the Turtle (1958) is often interpreted as an allegory of tyranny.

It can also be applied to political activism, making the statement that even one single act of resistance by a single individual can topple a corrupt system. Shortly before the end of the Watergate scandal, Geisel also converted one of his famous children's books into a polemic. "Richard M. Nixon, Will You Please Go Now!" was published in major newspapers through the column of his friend Art Buchwald. Nine days later, Nixon went. Seuss's personal values also are apparent in the much earlier How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957), which can be taken (partly) as a polemic against materialism. The Grinch thinks he can steal Christmas from the Whos by stealing all the Christmas gifts and decorations, and attains a kind of enlightenment when the Whos prove him wrong. Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose (1948) is often considered to be making a statement about hunting. Horton Hears a Who! is said to be a response to the atomic bomb.

While the line from the book "A person is a person, no matter how small" has been used as rhetoric against abortion rights, Seuss himself had threatened to sue an anti-abortion group for their use of the phrase, and has attracted sharp criticism from his widow, herself strongly pro-choice. A lawsuit was filed in Canada in 2001 on this issue. Adaptations of Seuss's Work For most of his career, Dr. Seuss was reluctant to have his characters marketed in contexts outside of his own books. However, he did allow a few animated cartoons, an art form in which he himself had gained experience during the Second World War. In 1966, Seuss authorized the eminent cartoon artist Chuck Jones, his friend and former colleague from the war, to make a cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Seuss, as "Ted Geisel", is credited as a co-producer along with Jones. This cartoon was very faithful to the original book. It is considered a classic by many to this day, and is in the large catalog of annual Christmas television specials.

Several more animated specials based on Seuss' work followed, including cartoon versions of The Lorax and The Cat in the Hat in 1971, but the latter was considered less successful. Toward the end of his life, Seuss seems to have relaxed his policy, and several other cartoons and toys were made featuring his characters, usually the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch. When Seuss died of cancer at the age of 87 in 1991, his widow Audrey Geisel was placed in charge of all licensing matters. Since then, Audrey Geisel has become a controversial figure among some of Seuss's fans, seen as being far more liberal in permitting commercialization of her husband's characters and stories. She approved a live-action film version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey, as well as a Seuss-themed Broadway musical called Seussical (both released in 2000). A live-action film based on The Cat in the Hat was released in 2003, featuring Mike Myers as the title character.

Audrey Geisel was said to have been very vocal in her dislike of the film, and is believed to have said there would be no further live-action adaptations of Seuss' books. Dr. Seuss' books and characters also now appear in an amusement park: the Seuss Landing 'island' at the Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida. Product tie-ins (cereal boxes, and so on) have also been implemented. In November 2004, an edition of MAD Magazine (Mad #447) featured a cover story in which lines from Seuss' books were compared with supposedly similar lines from speeches made by George W. Bush. It was titled "The Strange Similarities Between the Bush Administration and the World of Dr. Seuss." The cover drawing was of a Cat in the Hat that resembled Bush. Trivia On the season premiere of Saturday Night Live following Dr. Seuss' death, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was a special guest during the News segment. He declared that "rather than reading from First or Second Samuel, I will read from 'Sam I Am' by the Prophet Seuss," whereupon he read Green Eggs and Ham in the style of a preacher giving an impassioned sermon.

On December 1, 1995 The University Library Building at the University of California, San Diego was renamed Geisel Library in honor of Audrey and Theodor Geisel for the generous contributions they have made to the library and their devotion to improving literacy. The Geisels were long-time residents of La Jolla, where UC San Diego is located. Dr Seuss was frequently confused, by the US Postal Service among others, with Dr Suess (cf Hans Suess) his contemporary living in the same locality, La Jolla. Ironically, both names have been posthumously linked together: The personal papers of Hans Suess are housed in the Geisel Library at UCSD. Dr. Seuss was a friend and drinking partner of crime author Raymond Chandler, who was also a resident of La Jolla. Dr Seuss Books - Biography and List of Works - Author of '' Home > Authors > Dr Seuss books Dr Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904- September 24, 1991), better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, was a famous American writer and cartoonist best known for his children's books.

He also wrote under the pen names Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925, where he was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Casque & Gauntlet Society, and wrote for the Dartmouth Jack O'Lantern humor magazine under his own name and the pen name "Seuss." He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a doctorate in literature. At Oxford he met Helen Palmer, married her in 1927, and returned to the United States before earning his doctorate. He began submitting humorous articles and illustrations to Judge (a humor magazine), The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. One notable "Technocracy Number" made fun of Technocracy, Inc. and featured satirical rhymes at the expense of Frederick Soddy. He became nationally famous from his advertisements for Flit, a common insecticide at the time. His slogan, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a popular catchphrase. Geisel supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression by drawing advertising for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and many other companies.

He also wrote and drew a short lived comic strip called Hejji in 1935. Even at this early stage, Geisel had started using the pen name "Dr. Seuss". His first work signed as "Dr. Seuss" appeared six months into his work for Judge. Seuss was his mother's maiden name; as an immigrant from Germany, she would have pronounced it more or less as "zoice", but today it is universally pronounced with an initial s sound and rhyming with "juice". The "Dr." is an acknowledgment of his father's unfulfilled hopes that Seuss would earn a doctorate at Oxford. Geisel also used the pen name Theo LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards) for books he wrote but others illustrated. In 1936, while Seuss sailed again to Europe, the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street . Seuss wrote three more children's books before World War II (see list of works below), two of which are, atypically for him, in prose. As World War II began, Dr.

Seuss turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-wing New York City daily newspaper, PM. Dr. Seuss's political cartoons opposed the viciousness of Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of isolationists, most notably Charles Lindbergh, who opposed American entry into the war. Some cartoons depicted Japanese Americans as traitors, one of which appeared days before the internments started. In 1942, Dr. Seuss turned his energies to direct support of the US government's war effort. First, he worked drawing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army and was sent to Frank Capra's Signal Corps Unit in Hollywood, where he wrote films for the United States Armed Forces, including "Your Job in Germany," a 1945 propaganda film about peace in Europe after World War II, "Design for Death," a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1948, and the Private Snafu series of army training films. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Dr.

Seuss's non-military films from around this time were also well-received; Gerald McBoing-Boing won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Animated) in 1951. Despite his numerous awards, Dr. Seuss never won the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery. Three of his titles were chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1947), Bartholomew and The Oobleck (1949), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). After the war, Dr. Seuss and his wife moved to La Jolla, California, a small community forming part of San Diego. Returning to children's books, he wrote what many consider to be his finest works, including such favorites as If I Ran the Zoo , (1950), Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953), On Beyond Zebra! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957). At the same time, an important development occurred that influenced much of Seuss's later work.

In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Accordingly, Seuss's publisher made up a list of 400 words he felt were important and asked Dr. Seuss to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words. Nine months later, Seuss, using 220 of the words given to him, completed The Cat In the Hat . This book was a tour de force, it retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Seuss's earlier works, but because of its simplified vocabulary could be read by beginning readers. In 1960, Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50 that he couldn't write an entire book using only fifty words. The result was Green Eggs and Ham. The prevalent rumor that Cerf never paid Seuss the $50 has never been proven and is most likely untrue. These books achieved significant international success and remain very popular. Dr.

Seuss went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as "Beginner Books") and in his older, more elaborate style. The Beginner Books were not easy for Seuss, and reportedly he labored for months crafting them. At various times Seuss also wrote books for adults that used the same style of verse and pictures: The Seven Lady Godivas , Oh, The Places You'll Go!, and his final book You'Re Only Old Once , a satire of hospitals and the geriatric lifestyle. Following a very difficult illness, Helen Palmer Geisel committed suicide on October 23, 1967. Seuss married Audrey Stone Diamond on June 21, 1968. Seuss himself died, following several years of illness, in La Jolla, California on September 24, 1991. Dr. Seuss's meters Dr. Seuss wrote most of his books in a verse form that in the terminology of metrics would be characterized as anapestic tetrameter, a meter employed also by Lord Byron and other poets of the English literary canon. (It is also the meter of the famous Christmas poem A Visit From St.

Nicholas.) Abstractly, anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units (anapests), each composed of two weak beats followed by one strong, schematized below: x x X x x X x x X x x X Often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end. A typical line (the first line of If I Ran the Circus) is: In ALL the whole TOWN the most WONderful SPOT Seuss generally maintained this meter quite strictly, up to late in his career, when he was no longer able to maintain strict rhythm in all lines. The consistency of his meter was one of his hallmarks; the many imitators and parodists of Seuss are often unable to write in strict anapestic tetrameter, or unaware that they should, and thus sound clumsy in comparison with the original. Seuss also wrote verse in trochaic tetrameter, an arrangement of four units each with a strong followed by a weak beat: X x X x X x X x An example is the title (and first line) of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish .

The formula for trochaic meter permits the final weak position in the line to be omitted, which facilitates the construction of rhymes. Seuss generally maintained trochaic meter only for brief passages, and for longer stretches typically mixed it with iambic tetrameter: x X x X x X x X which is easier to write. Thus, for example, the magicians in Bartholemew and the Oobleck make their first appearance chanting in trochees (thus resembling the witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth): Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff then switch to iambs for the oobleck spell: Go make the oobleck tumble down On every street, in every town! In Green Eggs and Ham , Sam-I-Am generally speaks in trochees, and the exasperated character he proselytizes replies in iambs. While most of Seuss's books are either uniformly anapestic or iambic-trochaic, a few mix triple and double rhythms. Thus, for instance, Happy Birthday To You is generally written in anapestic tetrameter, but breaks into iambo-trochaic meter for the "Dr. Derring's singing herrings" and "Who-Bubs" episodes. Dr.

Seuss's art Seuss's earlier artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or watercolors, but in children's books of the postwar period he generally employed the starker medium of pen and ink, normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. Later books such as The Lorax used more colors, not necessarily to better effect. Seuss's figures are often somewhat rounded and droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of the Grinch and of the Cat in the Hat. It is also true of virtually all buildings and machinery that Seuss drew: although these objects abound in straight lines in real life, Seuss carefully avoided straight lines in drawing them. For buildings, this could be accomplished in part through choice of architecture. For machines, Seuss simply distorted reality; for example, If I Ran the Circus includes a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy steam calliope. Seuss evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects. His endlessly varied (but never rectilinear) palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Seuss also drew elaborate imaginary machines, of which the Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count, from Dr.

Seuss's Sleep Book , is one example. Seuss also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur, for example, the 500th hat of Bartholemew Cubbins, the tail of Gertrude McFuzz, and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Seuss's images often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voila" gesture, in which the hand flips outward, spreading the fingers slightly backward with the thumb up; this is done by Ish, for instance, in One Fish, Two Fish when he creates fish (who perform the gesture themselves with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of If I Ran the Circus, and in the introduction of the Little Cats in The Cat In the Hat Comes Back . Seuss also follows the cartoon tradition of showing motion with lines, for instance in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in If I Ran the Circus.

Cartoonist's lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses (sight, smell, and hearing) in The Big Brag and even of thought, as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful idea. Recurring images Seuss's early work in advertising and editorial cartooning produced sketches that received more perfect realization later on in the children's books. Often, the expressive use to which Seuss put an image later on was quite different from the original. The examples below are from the website of the Mandeville Special Collections Library of the University of California, San Diego. * An editorial cartoon of July 16, 1941 depicts a whale resting on the top of a mountain, as a parody of American isolationists, especially Charles Lindbergh. This was later rendered (with no apparent political content) as the Wumbus of On Beyond Zebra (1955). Seussian whales (cheerful and balloon-shaped, with long eyelashes) also occur in On Beyond Zebra. * The tower of turtles in this editorial cartoon from 1941 prefigures a similar tower in Yertle the Turtle .

* Seuss's earliest elephants were for advertising and had somewhat wrinkly ears, much as real elephants do. With And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1940), the ears became more stylized, somewhat like angel wings and thus appropriate to the saintly Horton. During World War II, the elephant image appeared as an emblem for India in four editorial cartoons. Horton and similar elephants appear frequently in the postwar children's books. * While drawing advertisements for Flit, Seuss became adept at drawing insects with huge stingers, shaped like a gentle S-curve and with a sharp end that included a rearward-pointing barb on its lower side. Their facial expressions depict gleeful malevolence. These insects were later rendered in an editorial cartoon as a swarm of Allied aircraft (1942), and later still as the Sneedle of On Beyond Zebra. Dr. Seuss's politics From his work, it would appear that Dr. Seuss's political views were what 20th century Americans would call liberal.

His early political cartoons show a passionate opposition to fascism, and he urged Americans to oppose it, both before and after the entry of the United States into World War II. Seuss's cartoons also called attention to the early stages of the Holocaust and denounced discrimination in America against black people and Jews. Seuss's harsh treatment of the Japanese and of Japanese Americans, mentioned above, has struck many readers as a strange moral blind spot in a generally idealistic man. Seuss moved to La Jolla, California in 1948, following his years living and working in Hollywood. A widely told story says that when he first went to register to vote in La Jolla, some Republican friends called him over to where they were registering voters, but Ted said, "You my friends are over there, but I am going over here [to the Democratic registration]." Geisel had since been a lifelong Democrat. Seuss's children's books also express his commitment to social justice as he perceived it: * The Lorax (1971), though told in full-tilt Seussian style, strikes many readers as fundamentally an environmentalist tract.

It is the tale of a ruthless and greedy industrialist (the "Once-ler") who so thoroughly destroys the local environment that he ultimately puts his own company out of business. The book is striking for being told from the viewpoint (generally bitter, self-hating, and remorseful) of the Once-ler himself. In 1989, an effort was made by lumbering interests in Laytonville, California to have the book banned from local school libraries, on the grounds that it was unfair to the lumber industry. * The Sneetches (1961) is commonly seen as a satirization of physical discrimination. * The Butter Battle Book (1984) written in Seuss's old age, is both a parody and denunciation of the nuclear arms race. * Yertle the Turtle (1958) is often interpreted as an allegory of Adolf Hitler * Shortly before the end of the Watergate scandal, Geisel also converted one of his famous children's books into a polemic. "Richard M. Nixon, Will You Please Go Now!" was published in major newspapers through the column of his friend Art Buchwald. Nine days later, Nixon went.

* Seuss's personal values also are apparent in the much earlier How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957), which can be taken (partly) as a polemic against materialism. The Grinch thinks he can steal Christmas from the Whos by stealing all the Christmas gifts and decorations, and attains a kind of enlightenment when the Whos prove him wrong. Adaptations of Seuss's work For most of his career, Dr. Seuss was reluctant to have his characters marketed in contexts outside of his own books. However, he did allow a few animated cartoons, an art form in which he himself had gained experience during the Second World War. In 1966, Seuss authorized the eminent cartoon artist Chuck Jones, his friend and former colleague from the war, to make a cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! . This cartoon was very faithful to the original book. It is considered a classic by many to this day, and is in the large catalog of annual Christmas television specials. In 1971, a cartoon version of The Cat in the Hat was made as well, but it was considered less successful.

Toward the end of his life, Seuss seems to have relaxed his policy, and several other cartoons and toys were made featuring his characters, usually the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch. When Seuss died of cancer at the age of 87 in 1991, his widow Audrey Geisel was placed in charge of all licensing matters. Since then, Audrey Geisel has become a controversial figure among many of Seuss's fans, seen as being far more liberal in permitting commercialization of her husband's characters and stories. She approved a live-action film version of "the Grinch" starring Jim Carrey, as well as a Seuss-themed Broadway musical called Seussical (both released in 2000). A live-action film based on The Cat in the Hat was released in 2003, featuring Mike Myers as the title character. Dr. Seuss' books and characters also now appear in an amusement park: the Seuss Landing 'island' at the Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida. Product tie-ins (cereal boxes, and so on) have also been implemented.

In November 2004, an edition of MAD Magazine (Mad #447) featured a cover story in which lines from Seuss' books were compared with supposedly similar lines from speeches made by George W. Bush. It was titled "The Strange Similarities Between the Bush Administration and the World of Dr. Seuss." The cover drawing was of a Cat in the Hat that resembled Bush. Dr Seuss books Theodor Geisel Biography - childhood, children, name, story, death, wife, school, young, book, information, born Theodor Geisel Biography La Jolla, California American children's book author and illustrator Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, wrote the popular children's books The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hatches the Egg, and many more. As Dr. Seuss, Geisel brought a whimsical touch and a colorful imagination to the world of children's books. Theodor Geisel. . Childhood and early career Theodor Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

His father owned a brewery until the onset of Prohibition, a time in the 1920s when buying and selling alcohol was made illegal. Geisel's father then took a job as superintendent of city parks, which included the local zoo. There, young Theodor spent many days drawing the animals and eventually developing his own unique style. Though Geisel would later gain fame because of his unique artistic style, he never once had an art lesson. After graduating high school, Geisel went on to graduate from Dartmouth College in 1925, and later studied at the Lincoln College of Oxford University in England. After dropping out of Oxford, he traveled throughout Europe, mingling with émigrés (those living abroad) in Paris, including writer Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961). Eventually returning to New York, he spent fifteen years in advertising before joining the army and making two Oscar-winning documentaries, "Hitler Lives" and "Design for Death," which he made with his wife, Helen Parker Geisel. He would also win an Oscar for his animated cartoon "Gerald McBoing Boing"(1951).

Also at this time Geisel began drawing and selling his cartoons to national magazines, including Vanity Fair and the Saturday Evening Post. Later he worked as an editorial cartoonist for PM newspaper in New York. First books Geisel began writing the verses of his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, in 1936 during a rough sea passage. But success did not come easy for the young author, as Mulberry Street was rejected by twenty-nine different publishers before it was finally accepted. Published in 1937, the book won much praise, largely because of its unique drawings. All of Geisel's books, in fact, feature crazy-looking creatures that are sometimes based on real animals, but which usually consist of such bizarre combinations of objects as a centipede and a horse and a camel with a feather duster on its head. Unlike many puppeteers and cartoonists who have capitalized on their creations by selling their most familiar images to big-time toy-makers, Dr. Seuss concentrated his efforts on creating interesting books. In May 1954, after a string of successful books, Geisel published what would become his most famous book, The Cat in the Hat.

Legend has it that The Cat in the Hat was created, in part, because of a bet Geisel made with a publisher who said he could not write a complete children's book with less than 250 words. The Cat in the Hat came in at 223 words. In 1960 Geisel published his second-most successful book, Green Eggs and Ham, which used only fifty words. In 1958, from the success of his children's books, Geisel founded Beginner Books, which eventually became part of Random House. "Basically an educator" Admired among fellow authors and editors for his honesty and hard work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, according to Ruth MacDonald in the Chicago Tribune, "perfected the art of telling great stories with a vocabulary as small as sometimes fifty-two or fifty-three words." "[Geisel] was not only a master of word and rhyme and an original and eccentric artist," Gerald Harrison, president of Random House's merchandise division, declared in Publisher's Weekly, "but down deep, I think he was basically an educator.

He helped teach kids that reading was a joy and not a chore.… For those of us who worked with him, he taught us to strive for excellence in all the books we published." Wrote for adults as well as children Geisel's last two books spent several months on the bestseller lists and include themes that appealed to adults as well as children. "Finally I can say that I write not for kids but for people," he commented in the Los Angeles Times. Many of his readers were surprised to learn that Geisel had no children of his own, though he had stepchildren from his second marriage to Audrey Stone Dimond. To this fact he once said, "You make 'em, I amuse 'em," as quoted in the Chicago Tribune. According to the Los Angeles Times, the author also remarked, "I don't think spending your days surrounded by kids is necessary to write the kind of books I write.… Once a writer starts talking down to kids, he's lost. Kids can pick up on that kind of thing." Before Geisel, juvenile books were largely pastel, predictable, and dominated by a didactic tone (a sense that the books were intended to instruct). Though Dr.

Seuss books sometimes included morals, they sounded less like behavioral guidelines and more like, "listen to your feelings" and "take care of the environment," universal ideas that would win over the hearts of youngsters from around the world. Geisel's 47 books were translated into 20 languages and have sold more than 200 million copies. 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. Theodor Geisel died September 24, 1991, in La Jolla, California. To children of all ages, Dr. Suess remains the most famous and influential name in children's literature. For More Information March 2 Birthdays: Dr. Seuss 1904–1991; author of children's books By Borgna Brunner At the time of Theodor Seuss Geisel's death in 1991, his 46 children's books had sold more than 200 million copies, and his last, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

(1990), was still on the bestseller lists. His books, which he both illustrated and wrote, have been translated into twenty languages as well as Braille. Better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, he populated his odd and fanciful children's books with a hybrid bestiary of Wockets, Whos, Grinches, bunches of Hunches, Bar-ba-loots, red fish, blue fish, and a fox in socks. He once remarked in an interview, "If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up." His stories march forward at an incantatory, rhythmic pace, and are full of tongue-twisters, word play, and highly inventive vocabulary. The American Heritage Dictionary in fact credits Dr. Seuss as the originator of the word nerd, which made its first appearance in his 1950 book, If I Ran the Zoo: "And then just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" His books were originally considered too outlandish to appeal to children.

His first, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937), was reputedly rejected by twenty-eight publishers before it finally found a home at Random House. It was one of the company's most prescient decisions: former Random House President Bennett Cerf once remarked, "I've published any number of great writers, from William Faulkner to John O'Hara, but there's only one genius on my authors list. His name is Ted Geisel." Among his most famous books is The Cat and the Hat (1957), a story about two children who find themselves home alone with a roguish, hat-wearing feline who is a study in bad behavior. With only 223 vocabulary words and much repetition, it was ideally suited for beginning readers and became a lively alternative to the wooden dullness of the "See Spot run" primers. And Green Eggs and Ham (1960) managed with a vocabulary of just fifty words to tell the story of a Seuss creature's relentless crusade to introduce a hapless furry character to a revolting dish.

In addition to becoming one of the world's most loved children's writers, Ted Geisel worked as a political cartoonist, an advertising illustrator, and a documentary filmmaker. In addition to the pen name Dr. Seuss, he also wrote under the pseudonyms Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. He graduated from Dartmouth College, where he edited the school humor magazine, and pursued a Ph.D. in English literature at Oxford, ultimately dropping out when he decided his studies were "astonishingly irrelevant." They certainly did little to aid his phantasmagorical imagination in the creation of the environmentally conscious Loraxes and fractious Sneetches, not to mention the indescribable Zubble-wumps and ooey-gooey green Ooblecks. Dr. Seuss claimed his ideas started with doodles: "I may doodle a couple of animals; if they bite each other, it's going to be a good book." Related Links: 9 Things You May Not Know About Dr. Seuss - History in the Headlines 9 Things You May Not Know About Dr. Seuss March 1, 2012 By Christopher Klein Share this: 9 Things You May Not Know About Dr.

Seuss Author 9 Things You May Not Know About Dr. Seuss URL Google The classic Dr. Seuss fable “The Lorax” hits movie theaters tomorrow, which also happens to be the 108th anniversary of the birth of the famed children’s author and illustrator. To celebrate, here are a few surprising facts about the wildly imaginative man who penned some of the best-selling children’s books of all time. 1. Dr. Seuss’ real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel. A grandson of German immigrants, Theodor (without an “e”) was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904. Seuss was his mother’s maiden name. While the actual German pronunciation of “Seuss” rhymed with “voice,” the American pronunciation, rhyming with “juice,” stuck. 2. Teddy Roosevelt left Dr. Seuss with a permanent case of stage fright. Affirming the loyalties of his German-American family during World War I, 14-year-old Ted Geisel was one of Springfield’s top sellers of war bonds.

Before an audience of thousands, Ted was to be the last of 10 Boy Scouts to receive a personal award for his efforts from former president Theodore Roosevelt. The president, however, was only given nine medals, and when he reached Geisel, Roosevelt gruffly bellowed, “What’s this little boy doing here?” Honor quickly turned to humiliation as the flustered scoutmaster whisked Ted off the stage. The event so scarred Dr. Seuss that he dreaded public appearances for the rest of his life. 3. Bootleg gin was responsible for the Dr. Seuss pseudonym. It certainly wasn’t a scene out of “Animal House,” but on the night before Easter in 1925, the local police chief caught Dartmouth College senior Ted Geisel partying with his friends and a pint of bootleg gin. The dean ousted Geisel as editor-in-chief of the Dartmouth humor magazine, but in what he called a “corny subterfuge,” Ted continued to ink cartoons under several pen names, including “Seuss” and “T. Seuss.” Geisel added the “Dr.” title a few years later. 4. Dr. Seuss was a “mad man.” Dr.

Seuss achieved early success writing and illustrating humorous advertisements for Flit, a bug spray manufactured by Standard Oil. (“Quick, Henry, the Flit!” became one of the most memorable catchphrases of its time.) He also created advertising campaigns for a diverse range of clients including Ford Motor Company, NBC and Narragansett Brewing Company. Even in his commercial work, Dr. Seuss employed a madcap menagerie of beasts, such as the “Moto-raspus” and “Karbo-nockus” who appeared in Essolube motor oil ads. 5. A chance sidewalk encounter led to Dr. Seuss’ first children’s book. After a 27th publisher rejected his first manuscript, Dr. Seuss walked dejectedly along the sidewalks of New York, planning to burn the book in his apartment incinerator. On Madison Avenue, however, he bumped into Dartmouth friend Mike McClintock, who that very morning had started a job as an editor in the Vanguard Press children’s section. Within hours, the men signed a contract, and in 1937 Vanguard Press published “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” which launched the extraordinary literary career of Dr. Seuss.

“If I had been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today,” he later said. 6. Dr. Seuss drew political cartoons for a left-leaning newspaper. As the Nazi tanks rolled into Paris in 1940, Dr. Seuss felt compelled to express his opposition to American isolationists, particularly aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. “I found that I could no longer keep my mind on drawing pictures of Horton The Elephant. I found myself drawing pictures of Lindbergh The Ostrich,” he said. Between 1940 and 1942, Geisel drew over 400 editorial cartoons skewering isolationists at home and the Axis abroad for the liberal newspaper “PM.” These included stereotypical and inflammatory depictions of Japanese leaders and xenophobic cartoons portraying Japanese Americans as disloyal. 7. During World War II, Dr. Seuss wielded his pen for the U.S. Army. In 1943, Captain Theodor Geisel reported for duty with director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps and got to work producing animated training films, booklets and documentaries. He worked alongside famed Warner Bros.

animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng in creating cartoons featuring Private Snafu , a bumbling GI with the looks of Elmer Fudd and the voice of Bugs Bunny whose missteps were a warning to enlisted men. After General Douglas MacArthur suppressed his training film “Our Job in Japan,” Dr. Seuss and his wife, Helen, used it as the basis for their screenplay for the 1947 documentary “Design for Death,” which earned an Academy Award. Seuss with his first wife, Helen, in 1957. 8. Dr. Seuss’ first wife committed suicide. Helen Geisel struggled for more than a decade with partial paralysis from Guillain-Barré syndrome. Depressed by her worsening symptoms and possibly by suspicions of her husband’s affair with a close friend who would become his second wife, Helen took her own life in October 1967 at the age of 68. “I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are, that I cannot conceive of life without you,” read her suicide note. “My going will leave quite a rumor, but you can say I was overworked and overwrought.

Your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed.” 9. Dr. Seuss never had any biological children. Helen Geisel was unable to bear children, and Geisel did not father any children with second wife Audrey, though he was a stepfather to her two daughters. When Dr. Seuss was asked how he could connect with children in spite of not having his own, his stock answer was, “You have ‘em, and I’ll entertain ‘em.” Tags 1000+ images about Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) on Pinterest | Dr. seuss, Childrens books and Biography Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) 23 Pins251 Followers 1000+ images about Seussical Art on Pinterest | Dr. seuss, Political cartoons and 1 fish 2 fish Dr. Seuss Political Cartoon (Note: The posting of this cartoon doesn't necessarily mean the poster agrees with it. It was posted in the name of scholarship.) See More

Question: March 2, 1904 saw the birth of what famous American author, who once wrote under the pen name Theo LeSieg?
Answer: Dr. Seuss