DR. SEUSS
A GUIDE TO FIRST EDITIONS
REVIEW IN FIRSTS MAGAZINE (December, 2002)

First Editions of
Dr. Seuss Books:
A Guide to Identification
Helen and Marc Younger,
Dan Hirsch
Saco, ME: Custom Communications, 2002,
200 pages, $150 + $6 Shipping
States "First Edition" and "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" on the copyright page
Copies may be obtained from the authors: Aleph-Bet Books, 85 Old
Mill River Rd., Pound Ridge, NY 10576; Telephone (914) 764-7410 or
Daniel Hirsch, PO Box 5096, Chapel Hill, NC 27514; Telephone (919) 542-1816

Children's literature occupies a special place in nearly everyone's
hearts, especially book collectors'. Most of us have fond memories of
the books of our childhood, dating from our earliest years, when they
were read aloud to us by our parents at bedtime. These were among the
best hours of childhood. Later, we found other books in school and
public libraries. These, too, were stored away in fond memory.
All of these tend to remain important to us as the years pass, and
we often seek them out again to read to our children and
grandchildren, hoping to pass on to them the magic we found when we
were young. Children's books are fundamental to our heritage,
cornerstones of our culture.

My first encounter with Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) was The 500 Hats
of Bartholomew Cubbins. My mother read it aloud to me some time
during the early stages of the Second World War, and we revisited it
often, since I wanted to hear it again and again, as is often the
case with children and their favorite stories. Although she has been
gone for more than 30 years, whenever I think of Dr. Seuss, I hear
her voice again.

The "ìDick and Jane" series was widely used in schools to teach
reading but, as the Youngers and Hirsch remark in their introduction,
many children actually taught themselves to read with the help of
Geisel's works, especially The Cat in the Hat. This enchanting book
was especially helpful in teaching reading to deprived inner city
youngsters, since the entire work was written using only 220
different words. There can be little doubt that Dr. Seuss had a
profound and positive impact on our society.

For those of us who collect first editions, children's books are
often our most prized possessions. However, it is often frustrating
to try to collect children's books. Many publishers skipped their
usual identification practices with their children's titles, meaning
that identification often comes down to dust wrapper pricing or
binding color or book size. The scant information available is badly
organized, and often the result of guesswork rather than scholarship.
We had heard for years that the Youngers, whose Aleph-Bet Books is
one of the premier children's booksellers in the world, were working
on a Dr. Seuss bibliography. After some time passed, we heard that
they had abandoned the project, concluding that a comprehensive,
authoritative bibliography was an impossible undertaking. Fortunately
for all of us, they had merely decided to modify the project, and
deal with only the part of the bibliography that is of most interest
to book collectors, the primary first editions.

The result is this splendid book, a guide to Dr. Seuss that is both
highly entertaining and full of information. It is much more usable
than most bibliographies. For once, the bibliographers not only
sought out and noted all of the pertinent facts about the books in
question, but also paid the same kind of attention to the dust
wrappers, and support their written material with color photographs
of both the books and the dust wrappers. First Editions of Dr. Seuss
Books is arranged alphabetically - certainly appropriate for the
subject. For each entry, the book and the dust wrapper are described,
not only in the usual bibliographical terms, but also by height and
width, binding materials, and the price of the book (both the amount
and where it is located in the design). Even more important is the
last entry for each work: First Printing Points.

First Editions of Dr. Seuss Books is library bound and issued
without a dust wrapper, which allows it to be handled repeatedly
without danger of soiling. The use of the original cover and dust
wrapper illustrations lend it the enchanting spirit of Dr. Seuss and
the information it contains should clarify, once and for all time,
identifying the true firsts. What more could you ask?

Now, if the Youngers and Hirsch would only tackle some of the other
authors in the endlessly mystifying world of children's firsts. But
even if they pass on these other projects, they have surely
accomplished one thing: they have set the standard for children's
book bibliographies.

The book's price, $150, reflects the small press run and the cost of
using color throughout, but for anyone interested in Dr. Seuss,
having such a reference work is indispensable. Speaking for my old
friend Cubbins, "500 hats off!"

-R.H.S.

reproduced with the permission of Firsts Magazine