First edition, earliest variant, of this subversive update to DICK AND JANE, based upon the idea that kids would get more excited about reading if they enjoyed the material.
Very good in very good jacket.
Price: $3,000.00
"[First graders] still want to laugh at something that's ridiculous." – Dr. Seuss
Challenged to create a reader for young children using only 220 different words, Seuss tricked kids into enjoying learning with his destructive and charismatic house guest. Inspired in part by Krazy Kat and Felix the Cat, but with a wily mind all his own, the Cat in the Hat's humor and naughtiness are engaged in the noble cause of literacy. "Parents," notes biographer Brian Jay Jones, "were more than happy to join Dr. Seuss as fellow revolutionaries. Even if parents didn't necessarily understand the pedagogy, it was easy to see the difference between the staid DICK AND JANE and the rambunctious CAT IN THE HAT: kids wanted to read about the antics of the cat, just as Geisel had hoped." The first book featuring the US literary icon, this copy comes directly from the stock of Aleph-Bet Books, the firm of Seuss bibliographers Helen Younger and Marc Younger.
Read more: Younger, Younger, & Hirsch, First Editions of Dr. Seuss Books: A Guide to Identification; Brown, "Sorry, Your $2 Cat in the Hat Is Not a First Edition"; Jones, Becoming Dr. Seuss.
New York: Random House, (1957). 9'' x 6.5''. Original flat paper over boards (not glazed paper). In original unclipped (200/200) dust jacket. Text block bound in one gathering. 61, [1] pages. Small former adhesive shadow on endpapers (continued slightly on jacket flaps), name erased from free endpaper. Jacket with some soiling around edges, a couple very small tape repairs to verso and light wear at spine ends.
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