Dr. Seuss fans are in for a treat this fall: Random House Children’s Books has announced that it will publish seven Seuss stories that appeared in magazines in the 1950s but that have yet to appear in book form.
The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss, who died in 1991, will be available September 27. It includes "The Bear, the Rabbit, and the Zinniga-Zanniga," about a rabbit who is saved from a bear with a single eyelash; "Gustav the Goldfish," an early, rhymed version of the book A Fish Out of Water; "Tadd and Todd," a tale passed down via photocopy to generations of twins; "Steak for Supper," about creatures who follow a boy home in anticipation of a steak dinner; "The Bippolo Seed," in which a scheming feline leads an innocent duck to make a bad decision; "The Strange Shirt Spot," which was the inspiration for the bathtub-ring scene in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back; and "The Great Henry McBride," about a boy whose far-flung career fantasies are only bested by those of the real Dr. Seuss. The stories were published in magazines in 1950 and 1951. Random is publishing the book as a $15 hardcover.
Kate Klimo, v-p, publisher of Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group, said, “We’re like happy prospectors, having discovered a hidden vein of gold. We know that Seuss fans, from the youngest right on up to collectors will share our joy come this fall when they break open a whole new collection of Seuss stories.”
Random enhanced the color palette of each story, and an introduction by Seuss scholar and collector Charles D. Cohen explains the significance of these seven stories, not only as lost treasures, but as transitional stories in Dr. Seuss’s career that marked the beginnings of his new philosophy about writing for children (these stories show a change from writing predominantly in prose to the rhyming style with which Seuss is now so closely associated).
