Dr. Seuss’ sales statistics
- Dr. Seuss’s books have sold more than 700 million copies globally
- They have been translated into more than 20 different languages
- In 2020, his best-seller Green Eggs and Ham sold more than 338,000 copies in the USA alone
- One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish sold more than 311,000 copies in the USA
- Oh, the Places You’ll Go! sold more than 513,000 copies in the USA
- In 2020, he earned $33 million
- This was 2nd of any dead celebrity that year behind only Michael Jackson
- The Cat in the Hat took less than 3 years after publication to sell 1 million copies
Who was Dr. Seuss?
- Dr. Seuss was an American author and illustrator
- His real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel
- He was born in Massachusetts, USA on March 2nd, 1904
- He attended Dartmouth College and went on to do a post-graduate degree at Oxford but left before attaining his degree
- In 1927, Geisel started to submit cartoons to magazines back in the US, and his first work under the name Dr. Seuss was published the same year
- He was also commissioned to do some advertising work and became quite successful in the field
- In 1931, he published his first book – an illustrated book of children’s figures of speech
- In 1936, he wrote his first children’s book – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. It was rejected by more than 20 publishers but was picked thanks to an old acquaintance from Geisel’s time at Dartmouth
- After the outbreak of WWII, Geisel started working for a New York newspaper drawing political cartoons
- In 1943, he joined the army and started to write propaganda films
- After the war, Dr. Seuss and his wife moved out to California and he resumed his work on children’s books
- In 1954 there was a report that children were struggling to learn to read because their books were boring, Geisel’s publisher set him a task to write a children’s book with the 250 most important words for young children – this book became The Cat in the Hat and contained 236 simple words
- The entertaining books with a simple vocabulary were some of his most popular and still sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies each year to the modern day
- In 1991, Dr. Seuss died of cancer at his home in San Diego. He was 87
How many books did Dr. Seuss write?
- Geisel wrote and published 51 books in his lifetime as Dr. Seuss
- He also published a further 14 books in his lifetime under pen names – 13 as Theo. LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone
- A further 17 books were published after his death in 1991 under the name Dr. Seuss
List of Dr. Seuss books
Published during Dr. Seuss’s lifetime
| Title | Published |
| The Pocket Book of Boners | 1931 |
| And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street | 1937 |
| The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins | 1938 |
| The King’s Stilts | 1939 |
| The Seven Lady Godivas | 1939 |
| Horton Hatches the Egg | 1940 |
| McElligot’s Pool | 1947 |
| Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose | 1948 |
| Bartholomew and the Oobleck | 1949 |
| If I Ran the Zoo | 1950 |
| Gerald McBoing Boing | 1952 |
| Scrambled Eggs Super! | 1953 |
| Horton Hears a Who! | 1954 |
| On Beyond Zebra! | 1955 |
| If I Ran the Circus | 1956 |
| The Cat in the Hat | 1957 |
| How the Grinch Stole Christmas! | 1957 |
| Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories | 1958 |
| The Cat in the Hat Comes Back | 1958 |
| Happy Birthday to You! | 1959 |
| One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish | 1960 |
| Green Eggs and Ham | 1960 |
| The Sneetches and Other Stories | 1961 |
| Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book | 1962 |
| Dr. Seuss’s ABC | 1963 |
| Hop on Pop: The Simplest Seuss for Youngest Use | 1963 |
| The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary | 1964 |
| Fox in Socks | 1965 |
| I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew | 1965 |
| The Cat in the Hat Song Book | 1967 |
| The Foot Book | 1968 |
| I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories | 1969 |
| My Book about ME | 1969 |
| I Can Draw It Myself | 1970 |
| Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?: Dr. Seuss’s Book of Wonderful Noises! | 1970 |
| The Lorax | 1971 |
| Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! | 1972 |
| Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? | 1973 |
| The Shape of Me and Other Stuff | 1973 |
| There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! | 1974 |
| Great Day for Up! | 1974 |
| Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! | 1975 |
| The Cat’s Quizzer | 1976 |
| I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! | 1978 |
| Oh Say Can You Say? | 1979 |
| Hunches in Bunches | 1982 |
| The Butter Battle Book | 1984 |
| You’re Only Old Once! | 1986 |
| I Am Not Going to Get Up Today! | 1987 |
| The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough | 1987 |
| Oh, the Places You’ll Go! | 1990 |
Published as Theo. LeSieg
| Title | Year |
| Ten Apples Up On Top! | 1961 |
| I Wish That I Had Duck Feet | 1965 |
| Come over to My House | 1966 |
| The Eye Book | 1968 |
| I Can Write! A Book by Me, Myself | 1971 |
| In a People House | 1972 |
| Wacky Wednesday | 1974 |
| The Many Mice of Mr. Bricea.k.a. The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice | 1974 |
| Would You Rather Be a Bullfrog? | 1975 |
| Hooper Humperdink…? Not Him! | 1976 |
| Please Try to Remember the First of Octember! | 1977 |
| Maybe You Should Fly a Jet! Maybe You Should Be a Vet! | 1980 |
| The Tooth Book | 1981 |
Published as Rosetta Stone
| Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!! | 1975 |
Published after Dr. Seuss’s death
| Title | Year |
| Daisy-Head Mayzie | 1995 |
| Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! | 1996 |
| My Many Colored Days | 1996 |
| The Big Green Book of Beginner Books | 1997 |
| Oh, Baby, the Places You’ll Go! | 1997 |
| Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! | 1998 |
| Your Favorite Seuss | 2004 |
| The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories | 2011 |
| My Big Book of Beginner Books about Me | 2011 |
| Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories | 2014 |
| The Big Orange Book of Beginner Books | 2015 |
| What Pet Should I Get? | 2015 |
| The Big Aqua Book of Beginner Books | 2017 |
| Dr. Seuss’s Book of Animals | 2018 |
| Dr. Seuss’s Book of Colors | 2018 |
| Dr. Seuss’s 123 | 2019 |
| Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum | 2019 |
What awards has Dr. Seuss won?
- Dr. Seuss and his wife co-authored the 1947 documentary, Design for Death. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1947
- In 1951, Gerald McBoing-Boing won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film making it his second Academy Award
- In 1984, Geisel won the Pulitzer Prize “for his contribution over nearly half a century to the education and enjoyment of America’s children and their parents.”
- His work has won two Emmys for Halloween Is Grinch Night in 1977 and The Grinch Grinches The Cat in the Hat in 1982
- Dr. Seuss won a Peabody Award in 1971
- He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Dr. Seuss controversy
- Many of Dr. Seuss’s cartoons contained crude racial stereotypes
- His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, contained a depiction of an Asian person with lines for eyes
- Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced in 2021 that 6 books would no longer be published
- These include Dr. Seuss’s first book – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
- The total list of books that have been removed by Dr. Seuss Enterprises is:
- And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
- If I Ran the Zoo
- McElligot’s Pool
- On Beyond Zebra!
- Scrambled Eggs Super!
- The Cat’s Quizzer
- There has been criticism that these books have low sales and were removed as part of a branding push rather than for more altruistic reasons
- The Cat in the Hat has been criticized for having racial undertones but has not been removed – many think this is due to its commercial success