Dr. Seuss | New England’s Gifts

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Dr. Seuss (also known as Theodor S. Geisel) wrote and illustrated children’s books that sold more than 200 million copies in some 20 languages.

Probably no other American has been so totally subsumed by an alter ego as Theodor S. Geisel, born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. To the wide world, Geisel was less than a stranger; he was completely anonymous. Dr. Seuss, on the other hand, was known to all. Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated children’s books that sold more than 200 million copies in some 20 languages. He created characters as famous as any in arts and letters: the Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, Yertle the Turtle, the Grinch, the Lorax. Dr. Seuss helped teach millions of children to read.

Ted Geisel, on the other hand, was an amiable, considerate, private, sometimes insecure man, Massachusetts born and bred. New England was, in fact, the first and last place where Ted Geisel existed only as Ted Geisel. By the time he’d graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925 and exited to the larger world, he was already carrying with him his Seussonym, his extra personality.

When his first children’s book, titled And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, by “Dr. Seuss,” appeared in 1937, only in Springfield did people say, “Remember Teddy Geisel? That’s his book.” For another half-century the folks in Springfield would be saying, some 47 more times, “Teddy Geisel’s got another book out.”

When he died on September 24, 1991, the world mourned the death of Dr. Seuss, the man who’d created the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat. But in Springfield, Massachusetts, they mourned Teddy Geisel.

—Excerpt from “The Boy Who Drew Wynnmphs,” by Robert Sullivan. Originally published in December, 1995.