Dr. Seuss | |
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Geisel in 1957, holding The Cat in the Hat
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Born | Theodor Seuss Geisel March 2, 1904 Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Died | September 24, 1991 La Jolla, California, U.S. |
(aged 87)
Pen name | Dr. Seuss Theo LeSieg Rosetta Stone Theophrastus Seuss |
Occupation | Writer, political cartoonist, animator, book publisher, artist, poet |
Genre | Children's literature |
Years active | 1927–1990 |
Spouse |
Helen Palmer Geisel (m. 1927; her death 1967) Audrey Stone Dimond (m. 1968; his death 1991) |
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Theodor Seuss Geisel (/ˈsɔɪs/ i/ˈɡaɪzəl/; March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book publisher, and artist, best known for authoring children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss (/suːs/). 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.
Geisel adopted his "Dr. Seuss" pen name during his university studies at Dartmouth College and the University of Oxford. He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life, and various other publications. He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, most notably for Flit and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. He published his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937. During World War II, he worked in an animation department of the United States Army where he produced several short films, including Design for Death, which later won the 1947 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.