© John Bryson/Getty ImagesThis doctor's world included whimsical plant-sprouting corncob pipes and stuffed blue-green abelards.
Theodore Seuss Geisel, the most famous children's book writer/illustrator of all time, was born 104 years ago today in Springfield, Massachusetts.
You've read the books - and if you've got youngsters about, you're likely re-reading them quite often - but what do you know of the man who was Seuss?
Illuminate your further readings with The Afterword's top five little known Geisel facts:
5: Dr. Seuss rhymes with another epic figure in children's literature: Mother Goose. Coincidence? No.
4: When presenting the dialogue for the magicians in
Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Seuss employed the use of trochees (or chorues) which presents text in an alternating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables ("Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff"). The techique was also used by Shakespeare with his cauldron stirring witches in
Macbeth (Toil! Toil!), by Poe in his poem
The Raven and often in nursery rhymes.