Theodor Geisel was born on this day in 1904. Better known as Dr. Seuss, the creator of Sam-I-Am, the Grinch, and the Cat in the Hat spent most of his adult life in La Jolla.

Nearly 30 years after death, his work remains a juggernaut of juvenile fiction. His 45 books have amassed well more than half a billion sales.

Yet long before any of that happened, Geisel very nearly quit. One spring day in 1937, he was walking up New York’s Madison Avenue with a manuscript for his first book under his arm. By then, it had been rejected by more than 20 publishers. Geisel bumped into a friend from his college days, Marshall McClintock, who had recently been made editor of children’s books at Vanguard Press. McClintock asked what Geisel was carrying. “That’s a book no one will publish,” was the answer. “I’m lugging it home to burn.”

McClintock invited Geisel to meet the president of Vanguard Press, James Henle, whose office happened to be right there on Madison Avenue. Known for gambling on unorthodox projects, Henle was intrigued by Geisel’s work, which didn’t look like anything else on the market. According to Geisel, the whole encounter — from chance encounter to contract signing — took 20 minutes.

The critical response to “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” was overwhelming. Beatrix Potter, the “Peter Rabbit” author, called it “the cleverest book I have met with for many years.” A New Yorker critic wrote: “They say it’s for children, but better get a copy for yourself and marvel at the good Dr. Seuss’s impossible pictures and the moral tale of the little boy who exaggerated not wisely but too well.”

As Geisel went on to broad fame, he remained forever grateful to McClintock. “That’s one of the reasons I believe in luck,” he once said, “If I’d been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I would be in the dry‐cleaning business today.”

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