Born on March 2, 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel is one of the most loved children’s authors whose works have been read by generations around the world. The bestselling author and illustrator wrote over 60 books and illustrated many of them throughout his lifetime.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, popularly known as Dr Seuss, wasn’t a real doctor. Instead he used the honorific “Dr” in order to appease his father who expected him to study medicine. Theodor Seuss Geisel came up with the pseudonym “Dr. Seuss” while he was studying at Dartmouth College, US. Traditional, Seuss’s pronounciation rhymes with the word voice. But he later changed it to rhyme with the word “rejoice”.
When he first began writing and illustrating children’s books, Theodor Geisel combined “Dr.” and “Seuss,” his middle name, which was also his mother’s maiden name, to create the pseudonym “Dr. Seuss.”
He started the practice of using a pseudonym when he was in college and he was stripped of his editorial privileges for the school’s humor magazine, the “Jack-O-Lantern.” Geisel then began publishing under aliases, such as L. Pasteur, D.G. Rossetti ’25, T. Seuss, and Seuss.
Once he left school and became a magazine cartoonist, he began signing his work as “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss” in 1927. Although he did not finish his doctorate in literature at Oxford as he had hoped, he still decided to shorten his pen name to “Dr. Seuss” in 1928.
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