For the music video director named Bartholomew Cubbins, see Jared Leto

Jared Leto

Jared Joseph Leto is an American actor, director, producer, occasional model and musician. Leto has appeared in both big budget Hollywood films and smaller projects from independent producers and art houses. He rose to prominence for playing Jordan Catalano in the teenage drama My So-Called Life...

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The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins is a children's book, written by Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....

 and published by Vanguard in 1938. Unlike the majority of Dr. Seuss's books, it is written in prose

Prose

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...

 rather than rhyming and metered verse

Meter (poetry)

In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...

. Geisel, who collected hats, got the idea for the story on a commuter train from New York to New England while he was sitting behind a businessman wearing a hat.

Characters and story

Set in feudal times, the story begins in the Kingdom of Didd, when King Derwin is riding through a street past Bartholomew Cubbins, a poor boy in the market. Bartholomew removes his hat, according to the laws, but another hat mysteriously appears; when he attempts to remove this one too, another one appears again, and this continues, even as he removes more and more hats, each growing in extravagance and beauty from the 451st hat onwards.

Eventually, as Bartholomew is being threatened with death, the 500th hat, studded with massive gems and gilding, comes off and Bartholomew's head is bare again. Stunned by the beauty of the hat, King Derwin grants him reprieve and trades him 500 gold coins for the 500th hat.

Recording

Not long after publication, the story was adapted for an album issued by RCA Victor (Y-339). Narrated by Paul Wing, the audio adaptation had a running time of 13 minutes and 37 seconds. The dramatization featured music and sound effects on two 10" 78rpm records in a bi-fold sleeve. This recording was played in elementary school classrooms during the early 1940s.

Stage Adaption

Minnesota's Children's Theatre Company, the only youth theatre company to ever win the coveted regional Tony Award, is the only theater company in the world with the rights to produce The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins on stage. The company has produced it nearly a dozen times since Theodore Geisel and his estate provided Children's Theatre with the rights. The company has toured the play across the USA, in China, Russia and Japan. The last time the company produced the play was to sold-out houses in 2010 at their Minneapolis home.

Sequel

The characters of Bartholomew and King Derwin returned a decade later in Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Bartholomew and the Oobleck is a 1949 book by Dr. Seuss . It follows the adventures of a young boy named Bartholomew, who must rescue his kingdom from a sticky substance called "oobleck". The book is a sequel of sorts to The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins...

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External links

• RCA Victor: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins