Once referred to by Robert Wilson of the New York Times Book Review as "probably the best-loved and certainly the best-selling children's book writer of all time," Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, initiated the Random House division Beginner Books and gave new life to juvenile literature. From his first children's book in 1937, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, to his recent The Butter Battle Book (1984), Dr. Seuss has provided his audience with entertainment as well as an occasional moral lesson.

Born on 2 March 1904 to parents of German origin, Theodor Seuss Geisel grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, was the daughter of a baker in Springfield and his father, Theodor Robert Geisel, worked in the family-run Springfield brewery, Kuhlmbach & Geisel, which locals pronounced "come back and guzzle." It was later--after Geisel was grown--that his father became superintendent of the...