#2: Cerf woos Seuss (Ted Giesel & Bennett Cerf)
Find someone who loves you the way Bennett Cerf loved doctor Seuss.
Speaker:Hello, listeners. Welcome to I'll Probably Delete This, where I learn about the book publishing industry and podcasting by telling stories from successful authors and other notable people from the history of trade publishing.
Speaker 1:There are lots of stories to tell from the career of Theodore Geisel. In this episode, we will focus on just one. The CEO of Random House first wooing and then offering seemingly unwavering support to Ted Geisel and his writing persona, Dr. Seuss. Geisel tested that commitment early and it took a very long time for Bennett Cerf's commitment to pay off, but boy did it ever. In future episodes, we will cover more stories from other successful authors and storytellers. Join me for this episode as we learn more about Dr. Seuss.
Speaker:Ted Geisel was 33 years old when his first book gets published. Vanguard Press published and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street in September of nineteen thirty seven. This was the first children's book he had done. He illustrated it and used his pen name Doctor. Seuss as he would for all of his children's books.
Speaker:In Mulberry Street, Geisel told the story of kind of the imaginative young boy named Marco and what that boy wished he had seen on a normal day walking home on Mulberry Street. The book sold decently well, but was no smash hit. Vanguard ordered an initial printing of 15,000 books, a pretty aggressive initial printing for this small publishing house. The book would go on to a second printing within two years, so pretty successful. And after six years, it had sold more than 30,000 copies and earned Geisel more than $3,000, around $3,500.
Speaker 1:In 2025 dollars, Ted had earned in the six years, between sort of 70,000 and $80,000 for the book. Good money, but obviously not enough that he could live off of. Vanguard also published the next Dr. Seuss book a year later. That one is The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. It sold fine, but not as well as Mulberry Street.
Speaker 1:But even before 500 hats came out, Bennett Cerf reached out to set up a meeting. Bennett Cerf was the CEO of Random House. He co founded Random House a little more than a decade before. They end up meeting in New York at the Twenty One Club for lunch. Geisel, in that period, was moving back and forth between San Diego where he was trying to move permanently and New York City.
Speaker 1:The purpose of the meeting was Surf wanted to lure Ted away from Vanguard so that Random House would be his book publisher going forward. In that meeting, Surf quickly committed to publishing any book that Geisel wrote. And he asked while they were eating their hamburgers if Geisel had any book ideas or was he working on any projects. And Ted's reply was not especially, but he went on to say, maybe an adult book with naked ladies. To Cerf's credit, he didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1:His response was immediate and enthusiastic. He said, great. I'll buy it. You come with me and I'll print anything you do. And that essentially sealed the discussion.
Speaker 1:From then on out, Ted Geisel, Doctor. Seuss would publish all of his books through Random House for the rest of his career. Geisel did write that book about naked ladies, and Random House did in fact publish it. Thankfully though, for both of them, he wrote another book at the same time that came out first. That book was The King's Stilts, came out in 1939.
Speaker 1:It ended up selling fewer than 5,000 copies over the first two years that it was in print. The next book, the one he had mentioned to surf at their lunch was The Seven Lady Godivas. It did even worse, which is an understatement. There's one book that suggests that in six months, it sold fewer than 50 copies. It was an unmitigated failure, and Random House had done a relatively aggressive printing of 10,000 copies, the majority of which it would later have to destroy.
Speaker 1:Doctor Seuss did bounce back in 1940 with Horton Hatches the Egg, which sells 8,000 copies in two years. And even though his books are selling okay, excluding the Seven Lady Godiva's, and despite the fact that Ted isn't making a living off of the books that he's publishing, Cerf is promoting the books and sending Ted on book signings to shopping centers in various parts of the country sends him off on, relatively plush train car to Ohio at one point. So even after the Seven Lady Godivas, Cerf also pushes Ted to sign a long term contract with Random House. Even after the failure, which certainly was a financial failure for the house, he is really pushing Ted to sign on and to commit because he's he wants to commit to Ted, wants Ted to understand that he's supportive. But all of this work gets put on hold because of the coming war.
Speaker 1:Ted doesn't publish any other children's books for seven years. In the lead up to the war, he's writing political cartoons, and he's doing that under the name of doctor Seuss. After Pearl Harbor in late nineteen forty one, he enlists in the the army. He does that in early nineteen forty two and starts his commission, and he serves in the army signal corps making movies for the army, training videos, promotional videos, what have you. And he doesn't return to book publishing until 1947, and in the interim he also has some dabbling with Hollywood and learns how to make films.
Speaker 1:When he comes back to writing and drawing kids books, which he affectionately called brat books, as he does in 1947, he would have real but somewhat modest success with them over the next ten years. And the books he published included Thidwick, The Big Hearted Moose, Horton Hears a Who, which is in a way kind of a follow-up to Horton Hatches the Egg, and then If I Ran the Zoo are are notable among the books that he's publishing. And essentially from '47 forward almost till the end of his life, he's publishing almost a new book a year. And in terms of his success, all of that changes in 1957 when Ted ends up writing two books that year that have huge sales, and in a way, changed the publishing industry in in significant respects. But that's a story we'll save for another time and another episode.
Speaker 1:So Cerf's bet on Dr. Seuss did pay off, and it paid off in a huge way. So once Dr. Seuss and the Dr. Seuss books have a hit, and he ended up writing several hits over his career, every other book in the catalog becomes more valuable.
Speaker 1:He published more than 50 books with Random House before he was through. And so in an industry where most of the profit for publishing is driven by sales of the back catalog, sort of already published books that were no longer being actively promoted. Ted's back catalog ends up being a huge boon for Random House. So Random House, even today, continues to make really significant profits off of Doctor Seuss books and sort of as an aside, just a few weeks back, I was walking through a local Target and they had a big display of Doctor Seuss books for sale. They're still selling, still making a lot of profit off of Dr.
Speaker 1:Seuss even thirty years after his death. But one of the things I hope you're asking or should be asking is why did Bennett Cerf, the CEO of Random House, commit and commit so early to Doctor. Seuss, to Ted Geisel? If you think about it, Ted had published one children's book. He hadn't published any adult books and really doesn't have any success publishing adult books.
Speaker 1:And that book, Mulberry Street had done relatively well, but wasn't a huge hit. His subsequent books weren't all that successful and he had one one really significant flop, but Cerf's commitment to him really doesn't waver from that first lunch that that he has. And one thing you should wonder is like why? Like, what was it that made Surf commit and and why did he stick with it? And he really tried to show Ted over time that he continued to be committed, continued to be excited about the work, continued to give give Ted authority to decide what he was gonna write, how he was gonna write it, when he would write it.
Speaker 1:And I think sort of the simple answer is probably the right one here. That surf thought Ted Geisel was a really unique and special talent and wanted to bet on him and bet on him big. One thing that Cerf was known for saying, and if you read a biography of doctor Seuss, you will surely come across this, is he would say, and Random House had a number of really successful authors, really notable authors who won lots of awards and prizes. So William Faulkner, John Updike after an acquisition, Truman Capote, and a number of others. And Cerf was known to say that they had lots of very very successful, very talented, very bright authors.
Speaker 1:But in Random House, there was only one true genius, and that was Ted Geisel. And his faith and commitment in Ted Geisel, Doctor. Seuss, really did pay off. I mean, it has been a huge moneymaker for Random House. They got out really interesting books.
Speaker 1:The the artwork and the children's books and the rhyme scheme are things that nobody else was doing, and it fundamentally changed children's literature. So the the bet that SURF made certainly did pay off and paid off big for both of them. Ted Geisel ended up making lots of money and lots of money personally and also made lots of money for Random House. It was a good deal for both of them, and Ted was able to live very comfortably and continue to pursue what became sort of his life's work and his obsession. A nice addendum to this part of the Doctor.
Speaker 1:Seuss and and Bennett Cerf story is the acquisition of Vanguard Press. Cerf retired as CEO from Random House in 1970. Robert Bernstein succeeded him, and Bernstein had a a pretty good relationship with Geisel and met him regularly, and I think it was his editor at one point. Bernstein served as CEO from 1970 up through 1989. And one of the last sort of major decisions and acts that Bernstein did was he had Random House acquire Vanguard Press.
Speaker 1:Vanguard had back catalog, they had active authors, but one thing that Bernstein would say was he did it because he wanted those two Doctor Seuss books that Random House didn't have. Essentially, that was his driving reason to buy a competing publishing house was because he wanted the two Doctor. Seuss books that Random House didn't have. It's time for the bibliography. If you like this story, if you wanna learn more, I have two book recommendations for you.
Speaker 1:The first is Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel by Judith and Neil Morgan, published by, no surprise, Random House in 1995. So they published the book just a few years after Geisel's death. And the second is Becoming Doctor.
Speaker 1:Seuss by Brian J. Jones, published by Dutton, which is an imprint of Penguin Random House in 2019, so more recent. Both of them are really interesting, compelling books, and Geisel had a pretty interesting life. If you can, find someone to love you as much as Bennett Cerf did Dr. Seuss and can commit to you in the same way.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining me. I hope you join me next time for another episode of I'll Probably Delete This, where we'll explore more stories of authors, storytellers, great books, and publishing.
