by Stephen J. Gertz
Over forty years ago, Theodore S. Geisel, aka
Dr. Seuss, began work on a book. Per usual, he had assistants working with him, one of whom managed the project. For reasons noted below, he put the manuscript aside. Then, in 1983, he reconsidered it when his former employee sent it to him for a long-lost look.
It consists of nineteen handwritten and drawn pages, the first seven of which are completely in the hand of Dr. Seuss. The remaining pages are mostly written by an assistant with corrections and doodles by Dr. Seuss, some taped on.
The text, written in Seussian prose, reads, in part:
"All Sorts of Sports. Shall I play checkers? golf? croquet? There are so many games there are to play. I could. / maybe.. / shall I.. There are so many many sorts. So many sorts of games + sports. What am I going to do today? There are so many games to play! I guess I won't. I'm all tired out. 100 GAMES & sports you can play. You can play checkers. You can play chess. Baseball. Football. Volleyball. Basketball. You can ski on snow. You can ski on water. And tiddle-de-winks. What am I going to do today. Well, that's a simple matter. Oh, that's easy. We could play. There are so many sports games to play. We could swim. I could play baseball...golf..or catch. Or I could play a tennis match. There are so many sports, let's see... I could bowl, jump hurdles, or water ski. I could blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf. Or blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf."
 |
| On Geisel's letterhead. |
The last page, marked page "6-7" by Dr. Seuss seems to be where the assistant took over, though Seuss adds corrections and doodles, as previously mentioned, some taped on.
The manuscript is accompanied by a Dr. Seuss TLs (typed letter, signed), autographed "Ted," regarding this unfinished book on Cat in the Hat Beginner Books letterhead dated July 11, 1983.
"Re your enclosed manuscript, I do indeed remember it. And my critique now is as same as then. What, in my opinion, is wrong with this story is that...despite the greatness of Pete as a stellar athlete hero...the negative image of him flubbing and unable to catch any ball at all will make him a schnook.
"This is not entirely apparent in the text, but when you picture these negative scenes in illustrations, you will find that negatives are always more memorable than positives. And I think the reader's reaction will be, 'What's the matter with this dope?' I may be wrong of course...so why not send it to Harper and Row who do very good brat books and several times have made best sellers out of properties that I've rejected."
In short, a schnook in a book is not a great hook.
The advice to submit the book to
Harper and Row is somewhat sarcastic; after the success of
The Cat in the Hat Random House set up Seuss with his own imprint,
Beginner Books. in partnership with Random House publisher
Bennett Cerf's wife,
Phyllis Fraser Cerf, and Geisel's wife, Helen. Harper and Row slavishly tried to goose the Seuss juice for their specially created imprint devoted to "brat books."
Readers of this letter may experience a bit of confusion over who actually wrote this manuscript. I called
Nate D. Sanders Auctions - who is offering the manuscript - for clarification. Mr. Sanders replied:
"I obtained this from one of Seuss' past employees who was a writers assistant. She was given the task of managing this book project. The first few pages of the manuscript are entirely in Seuss's hand. Later, the assistant took over. When Seuss refers to the manuscript as the assistant's, he is referring to the fact that it was her project and that it was indeed hers not his and she took possession of it, not him."
This is an eye-popping find, a Seuss book in its earliest stage, rough Seuss draft, an abandoned project not only never before seen on the market but never before seen or heard of, period.
