SAN DIEGO – Tucked in an unassuming hallway at the Geisel Library at UC San Diego are troves of artwork and writing of the late Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Here, you can thumb through original sketches from “The Cat in the Hat” and see margin notes with directions for the printer. If you look closely at a framed draft of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” you can see where Geisel taped scrap paper for edits.
The Dr. Seuss archives are a glimpse into the mind of the storyteller whose zany rhymes transformed children’s literature. He died in 1991, and his widow, Audrey Geisel, donated the bulk of his work to the library.
Last May, Dr. Seuss Enterprises and publishers from Penguin Random House visited the archives to hunt for new marketing material for the 70th anniversaries of “The Cat in the Hat” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” What they found was entirely unexpected…