Margaret Wise Brown
Encyclopedia
Margaret Wise Brown was a prolific American
author
of children's literature
, including the books Goodnight Moon
and The Runaway Bunny
, both illustrated by Clement Hurd
.
neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and in 1923 attended boarding school in Woodstock, Connecticut
, while her parents were living in Canterbury
. She began attending Dana Hall School
in Wellesley, Massachusetts
, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College
in Roanoke, Virginia
.
Following her graduation with a B.A. in English from Hollins in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher, and also studied art. It was while working at the Bank Street Experimental School
in New York City
that she started writing books for children. Her first book was When the Wind Blew, published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers
.
Brown then went on to develop her Here and Now stories, and later the Noisy Book series while employed as an editor at William R. Scott. Her popular book The Little Fur Family, illustrated by Garth Williams
, was published in 1946. Also in 1946, Brown wrote The Little Island
under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald (illustrated by Leonard Weisgard
), which won the Caldecott Medal
in 1947. In the early 1950s, she wrote several books for the Little Golden Books
series including The Color Kittens
, Mister Dog and Scuppers The Sailor Dog.
Brown (nicknamed "Brownie" by her friends), dated the Prince of Spain, Juan Carlos, and in the summer of 1940 began a long-term relationship with Michael Strange (a.k.a. Blanche Oelrichs), poet/playwright, actress, and the former wife of John Barrymore
. The relationship, which began as a mentoring one, eventually became romantic, and included co-habitating at 10 Gracie Square, in Manhattan, beginning in 1943. Strange, who was twenty years Brown's senior, died in 1950.
In 1952 Brown met James Stillman Rockefeller Jr. at a party, and they became engaged. Later that year, while on a book tour in Nice
, France
, she unexpectedly died at 42 of an embolism
, two weeks after emergency surgery for an ovarian cyst
. (Kicking up her leg to show the doctor how well she was feeling ironically caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge and travel to her heart.) By the time of Brown's death, she had authored well over one hundred books. Her ashes were scattered at her island home, "The Only House" in Vinalhaven, Maine
.
Brown bequeathed the royalties to many of her books including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny to Albert Clarke, the son of a neighbor who was nine years old when she died. In 2000, reporter Joshua Prager detailed in the Wall Street Journal
the troubled life of Mr. Clarke, who has squandered the millions of dollars the books have earned him and who believes that Wise Brown was his mother, a claim others dismiss.
Brown left behind over 70 unpublished manuscripts. Her sister, Roberta Brown Rauch, after unsuccessfully trying to sell them, kept them in a cedar trunk for decades. In 1991, Amy Gary of WaterMark Inc., rediscovered the paper-clipped bundles of the more than 500 typewritten pages and set about getting the stories published.
Many of Brown's books have been re-released with new illustrations decades after their original publication. Many more of her books are still in print with the original illustrations. Her books have been translated into several languages; biographies on Brown for children have been written by Leonard S. Marcus (Harper Paperbacks, 1999) and Jill C. Wheeler (Checkerboard Books, 2006). Have a Carrot, a Freudian analysis of her "classic series" of bunny books has been written by Claudia H. Pearson (Look Again Press, 2010).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, including the books Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon is an American children's book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. It was first published in 1947, and is a highly acclaimed example of a bedtime story. It is about a child saying goodnight to everything around: "Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight...
and The Runaway Bunny
The Runaway Bunny
The Runaway Bunny is a 1942 picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. The plot deals with a small rabbit, who wants to run away...
, both illustrated by Clement Hurd
Clement Hurd
Clement G. Hurd was an American illustrator of children's books. He is best known for his collaborations with author Margaret Wise Brown, including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny...
.
Biography
The middle child of three whose parents suffered from an unhappy marriage, Brown was born in the GreenpointGreenpoint, Brooklyn
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, on the north by Newtown Creek and Long Island City, Queens at the...
neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and in 1923 attended boarding school in Woodstock, Connecticut
Woodstock, Connecticut
Woodstock is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 7,221 at the 2000 census.-Annual events:*The Woodstock Fair, run by the Woodstock Agricultural Society has been held since 1860. The current President of the Woodstock Fair is Susan Z. Hibbard...
, while her parents were living in Canterbury
Canterbury, Connecticut
Canterbury is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,692 at the 2000 census.-History:The area was first settled in the 1680s as Peagscomsuck, consisting mainly of land north of Norwich, south of New Roxbury, Massachusetts and west of the Quinebaug River and the...
. She began attending Dana Hall School
Dana Hall School
Founded in 1881, Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA, is an independent boarding and day school for girls in grades 6-12.-History:...
in Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census.It is best known as the home of Wellesley College and Babson College...
, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College
Hollins University
Hollins University is a four-year institution of higher education, a private university located on a campus on the border of Roanoke County, Virginia and Botetourt County, Virginia...
in Roanoke, Virginia
Roanoke, Virginia
Roanoke is an independent city in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. state of Virginia and is the tenth-largest city in the Commonwealth. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The population within the city limits was 97,032 as of 2010...
.
Following her graduation with a B.A. in English from Hollins in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher, and also studied art. It was while working at the Bank Street Experimental School
Bank Street College of Education
Bank Street College of Education is located in Manhattan, New York City.-History:Bank Street was founded in 1916 by Lucy Sprague Mitchell as the "Bureau of Educational Experiments"....
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that she started writing books for children. Her first book was When the Wind Blew, published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers
Harper & Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...
.
Brown then went on to develop her Here and Now stories, and later the Noisy Book series while employed as an editor at William R. Scott. Her popular book The Little Fur Family, illustrated by Garth Williams
Garth Williams
Garth Montgomery Williams was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books...
, was published in 1946. Also in 1946, Brown wrote The Little Island
The Little Island (book)
The Little Island is a book by Margaret Wise Brown under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Released by Doubleday in 1946, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1947....
under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald (illustrated by Leonard Weisgard
Leonard Weisgard
Leonard Joseph Weisgard was an award-winning American author and illustrator of more than 200 children's books, most famous for his collaborations with Margaret Wise Brown. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and spent most of his childhood in England.Weisgard studied art at the Pratt Institute...
), which won the Caldecott Medal
Caldecott Medal
The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children , a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. The award was named in honor of nineteenth-century English...
in 1947. In the early 1950s, she wrote several books for the Little Golden Books
Little Golden Books
Little Golden Books is a popular series of children's books. The first 12 titles were published on October 1, 1942:#Three Little Kittens#Bedtime Stories#Mother Goose#Prayers for Children#The Little Red Hen#Nursery Songs...
series including The Color Kittens
The Color Kittens
The Color Kittens is a children's book by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen published in 1949.The story revolves around two kittens, "Hush" and "Brush," who attempt to create green paint through mixing their other paints. Their attempts, amusingly, lead to a variety of...
, Mister Dog and Scuppers The Sailor Dog.
Brown (nicknamed "Brownie" by her friends), dated the Prince of Spain, Juan Carlos, and in the summer of 1940 began a long-term relationship with Michael Strange (a.k.a. Blanche Oelrichs), poet/playwright, actress, and the former wife of John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
. The relationship, which began as a mentoring one, eventually became romantic, and included co-habitating at 10 Gracie Square, in Manhattan, beginning in 1943. Strange, who was twenty years Brown's senior, died in 1950.
In 1952 Brown met James Stillman Rockefeller Jr. at a party, and they became engaged. Later that year, while on a book tour in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, she unexpectedly died at 42 of an embolism
Embolism
In medicine, an embolism is the event of lodging of an embolus into a narrow capillary vessel of an arterial bed which causes a blockage in a distant part of the body.Embolization is...
, two weeks after emergency surgery for an ovarian cyst
Ovarian cyst
An ovarian cyst is any collection of fluid, surrounded by a very thin wall, within an ovary. Any ovarian follicle that is larger than about two centimeters is termed an ovarian cyst. An ovarian cyst can be as small as a pea, or larger than an orange....
. (Kicking up her leg to show the doctor how well she was feeling ironically caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge and travel to her heart.) By the time of Brown's death, she had authored well over one hundred books. Her ashes were scattered at her island home, "The Only House" in Vinalhaven, Maine
Vinalhaven, Maine
Vinalhaven is a town located in the Fox Islands in Knox County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,235 at the 2000 census. It is home to a thriving lobster fishery and hosts a summer colony...
.
Brown bequeathed the royalties to many of her books including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny to Albert Clarke, the son of a neighbor who was nine years old when she died. In 2000, reporter Joshua Prager detailed in the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
the troubled life of Mr. Clarke, who has squandered the millions of dollars the books have earned him and who believes that Wise Brown was his mother, a claim others dismiss.
Brown left behind over 70 unpublished manuscripts. Her sister, Roberta Brown Rauch, after unsuccessfully trying to sell them, kept them in a cedar trunk for decades. In 1991, Amy Gary of WaterMark Inc., rediscovered the paper-clipped bundles of the more than 500 typewritten pages and set about getting the stories published.
Many of Brown's books have been re-released with new illustrations decades after their original publication. Many more of her books are still in print with the original illustrations. Her books have been translated into several languages; biographies on Brown for children have been written by Leonard S. Marcus (Harper Paperbacks, 1999) and Jill C. Wheeler (Checkerboard Books, 2006). Have a Carrot, a Freudian analysis of her "classic series" of bunny books has been written by Claudia H. Pearson (Look Again Press, 2010).