Dr Seuss’s first book was published in 1937 and dedicated to Helene McClintock, wife of his publisher. See here for more.
Dr Seuss’s Lucky Encounter with Mike McClintock
Dr Seuss books have is sold over 700 million copies worldwide, making him one of the best-selling children’s authors of all time. The author was Ted Geisel, aka Theodor Seuss Geisel, and took ‘Seuss’, his mother’s maiden name, as his pseudonym.
He had a lousy time trying to get a publisher for his first children’s book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.” At least 27 publishers had turned him down by 1937 when he was walking miserably down Madison Avenue in New York. At that moment, he stumbled into Mike McClintock, an old Dartmouth College classmate. Mike had just started work as the juvenile editor at Vanguard Press. He took Dr Seuss to see his boss, who agree to publish the book. “If I had been walking down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today,” mused Dr Seuss in later life. In honour of McClintock, he changed the main character’s name to ‘Marco,’ the name of McClintock’s son, and dedicated the book to McClintock’s then wife, Helene:
‘”For Helene McC. Mother of the One and Original Marco.”
The copy he gifted Helene was inscribed:
“To Helene, with thanks for the use of Marco (to say nothing of the use of Mike) — Ted (Dr. Seuss).”
The following year he gifted Helene a copy of his new book, ‘The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins’, for which Mike was also the editor. This one was inscribed:
“For Helene with love Ted (Dr. Seuss) (Sorry about leaving Marco out of this one–but he didn’t look well in this type of hat).” (See here)
In 1958, the Geisels and Phyllis Cerf Wagner (Phyllis Fraser) commissioned and published a series of Beginner Books, including ‘A Fly Went By’, by his old friend, Mike McClintock.
Mike McClintock (1906-1967) – The Man Who ‘Discovered’ Dr Seuss
Mike McClintock, author of ‘A Fly Went By’.
Marshall McClintock, as he was christened, was born in Topeka, Kansas, on 21 August 1906, a son of William McClintock, a lawyer, and his wife Martha.
After receiving an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1926, he started his career as clerk, then manager, of Doubleday Book Shops. He survived TB in 1929. Following that, he worked in the publishing field in New York, first as a salesman, and later as a sales manager for Viking Press. From 1929-1936, he worked as a sales manager for Heritage Press, but then he moved over and worked as a sale manager and juvenile editor for Vanguard press for the next eleven years, during which time he ‘discovered’ Dr Seuss. Throughout his career, he had stints with Saturday Evening Post, Saturday Review, Collier’s, and other magazines and he later worked as a freelance writer till his death in 1967.
He published under the pen names of Gregory Duncan, Douglas Marshall, Marshall Mac Clintock, and William Starret. His publications include “How to Build and Operate a Model Railroad,” “A Fly Went By,” “The Story of New England” and “Millions of Books – The Story of Your Library.”
Mike married three times: his first wife was Helene Maunsell, sister of Francis Maunsell, to whom Dr Seuss dedicated the book. His second was Inez Bertail; and his third was May Garelick, was a writer and editor. He had three children: Marco, Claudia and Michael.
Marco McClintock seemingly attended MIT, became a race car driver in the early 1950s, and settled in Albany, Western Australia.
See https://localwiki.org/hsl/Marshall_McClintock
The Budds of Dartry and Magherabeg
Dr Seuss – The King’s Stilts, 1939, was dedicated to the Budd sisters.
Frederick Gardner Orford Budd (1904 –1976) served as a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1966 to 1975, a Judge of the High Court from 1951 to 1966, and a Senator for the Dublin University. He was a son of Samuel Duguid Budd, a senior figure in the Provincial Bak of Ireland, who died in 1934. In 1931, Gardner Budd, as he was known, married Oonah Blennerhassett, the daughter of James Blennerhassett, merchant, and his wife, Selina (née Noble), of Sligo.
They had a son, Declan Budd, a High Court justice who also sat on the Court of Criminal Appeal, and three daughters, Alison (who married Palmer Carter), Clodagh (who married Brian Studdert) and Melissa. Declan and his late wife Ann (née Lawson) were parents of Roland, Una, Aoife and Leila.
Gardner Budd and his family lived at 73 South Hill, Dartry, Dublin, and Magherabeg, Wicklow. In the 1930s, Gardner became a close friend of Ted Geisel, aka Dr Seuss, and his wife Helen. Perhaps Dr Seuss was drawn by the judge’s penchant for doffing his bowler hat to strangers as he passed them on the street. Dr Seuss used to come to Ireland by boat and stay with the Budds in Dartry and Magherabeg, entertaining the children and drawings doodles of them, their cat and other creatures. He gifted Declan a drawing of a bird with a beak like a hockey stick.
Dr Seuss dedicated his 1939 book ‘The King’s Stilts’ – his second book for Random House and his fourth in total – to Alison Margaret and Deirdre Clodagh Budd ‘and all the Irish cats and seagulls on the shores of Inchydoney.’