And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

Geisel conceived the core of the book aboard a ship in 1936, returning from a European vacation with his wife. The rhythm of the ship's engines captivated him and inspired the book's signature lines:


At least 20 publishers rejected the book before Geisel ran into an old college classmate, who had just become juvenile editor at Vanguard Press. Vanguard agreed to publish the book, and it met with high praise from critics upon release, though sales were not as impressive. Later analyses of the book have focused on its connections to Geisel's childhood; the street of the title is probably named after a street in Geisel's hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. Geisel returned to fictionalized versions of Springfield in later books, and Marco appeared again in 1947 in the Dr. Seuss book McElligot's Pool.


In March 2021, the Seuss Estate removed the book from publication due to images in the book that the estate deemed "hurtful and wrong".^[1] As a book published in 1937, with proper renewal, the work will enter the American public domain on January 1, 2033.

Background[edit]

Geisel was 33 and had ten years of experience in cartooning, illustrating and advertising when he began work on Mulberry Street.^[2] He had an established and prosperous career in advertising, including a contract with Standard Oil for Flit bug spray. Geisel's popular campaign featured the line "Quick, Henry, the Flit!"^[3] He had also made some forays into book publishing: for Viking Press in 1931 he illustrated Boners and More Boners, collections of quotations from children's school papers. The book's positive sales encouraged Geisel to create his own children's book,^[4] which his advertising contract did not forbid.^[5] In 1932, Geisel wrote and illustrated an alphabet book featuring a collection of odd animals, but was unable to interest publishers in it.^[4][5]


According to Judith and Neil Morgan, Geisel conceived the core of Mulberry Street in the summer of 1936 aboard the MS Kungsholm, a Swedish American luxury liner, during the return trip from a European vacation with his wife, Helen Palmer. As the Kungsholm endured a storm and Geisel experienced sea sickness, he jotted down a rambling plot that started with "a stupid horse and wagon".^[6] To keep himself occupied, he began reciting poetry to the rhythm of the ship's engines and soon found himself saying, "And that is a story that no one can beat, and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street". For days after they landed, he had the rhythm of the ship's engine stuck in his head, so, at Helen's suggestion, he decided to write a story based on it.^[7]


The Morgans based this account on interviews with Geisel, who had given similar accounts of the book's creation to journalists throughout his career, often omitting or altering various details. In one version, he had already been working on the book for six months before the European trip, and the trip home provided the final breakthrough. In another, he claimed he had the book about half finished when they landed in the United States.^[8]


Geisel, in his perfectionism, struggled with writing Mulberry Street. According to the Morgans, "although he lived for wit, his flights of fancy were subject to strict review".^[6] He spent at least six months on the book, questioning every word and writing numerous drafts. He wrote the poem out in pencil on yellow paper and asked his wife to discuss every page with him.^[6]

Publication history[edit]

Geisel submitted his finished manuscript, originally titled A Story No One Can Beat, to dozens of publishers during the winter of 1936–37.^[6][a] Publishers posited a variety of criticisms of the book, including that fantasy was not salable, that children's books written in verse were out of style, and that the book lacked a clear moral message. According to the Morgans, Geisel angrily exclaimed to his wife, "What's wrong with kids having fun reading without being preached at?"^[6] She cited the book's cartoon-like drawings and its story, which might be seen to encourage daydreaming and lying to one's parents, as possible reasons for its rejection.^[10]


According to Geisel, he was walking down Madison Avenue in New York City after learning of the latest rejection, planning to burn the manuscript when he got home, when he ran into Mike McClintock, an old Dartmouth College classmate.^[11] McClintock had just become juvenile editor at Vanguard Press and took Geisel to his office to introduce him to Vanguard's President James Henle and editor Evelyn Shrifte. Henle had been gaining a reputation for signing authors whom other, larger publishers had rejected. He soon agreed to publish the book, but stipulated that its title be changed. Geisel cited the incident for his belief in luck and later stated, "If I had been walking down the other side of Madison Avenue, I'd be in the dry-cleaning business today".^[11] In gratitude to McClintock, Geisel changed the name of the book's protagonist to Marco, after McClintock's son, and dedicated the book to McClintock's wife, Helene.^[2]


In "an act of faith",^[12] Vanguard Press printed 15,000 copies of the book for its first printing. To promote the book, Henle bought a full-page advertisement in Publishers Weekly, which reproduced the book's two-page spread of a reindeer pulling a cart and featured the line, "Book publishers, hitch on! This is the start of a parade that will take you places!"^[12] Approximately two years later, Vanguard printed 6,000 more copies. By 1943, it had printed 31,600 copies, and Geisel's royalties were no more than $3,500.^[13] Although Geisel later moved to Random House, Vanguard continued to publish Mulberry Street and his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, until 1988, when Random House bought Vanguard.^[14]


The book has received only one textual revision. In 1978, Geisel agreed to a slight rewording, renaming the character who appears near the end of the story a "Chinese man" instead of a "Chinaman".^[15] He also agreed to remove the character's pigtail and the yellow coloring from the character's skin.^[16] However, he denied on multiple occasions requests from feminists to change the lines "Say—anyone could think of that,/ Jack or Fred or Joe or Nat—/ Say, even Jane could think of that".^[15]