Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

writer of

children's books A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younge ...

, including '' Goodnight Moon'' and '' The Runaway Bunny'', both illustrated by

Clement Hurd Clement Gazzam Hurd (January 12, 1908 – February 5, 1988) was an American artist. He is known for illustrations of children's picture books, especially collaborations with writer Margaret Wise Brown including ''Goodnight Moon'' (1947) and '' The ...

. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements.

Life and career

Brown was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the middle child of three of Maude Margaret (Johnson) and Robert Bruce Brown. She was the granddaughter of politician Benjamin Gratz Brown. Her parents had an unhappy marriage. She was initially raised in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, and attended Chateau Brilliantmont

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

in 1923, while her parents were living in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

. In 1925, she attended The Kew-Forest School. She began attending

Dana Hall School Dana Hall School is an independent boarding and day school for girls in grades 5-12 located in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1881 by Henry F. Durant, Dana Hall originally served as Wellesley College's preparatory program. Notable alumnae ...

in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. Brown was an avid, lifelong beagler and was noted for her ability to keep pace, on foot, with the hounds. Following her graduation with a B.A. in English from Hollins in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher and also studied art. While working at the Bank Street Experimental School in New York City she started writing books for children. Bank Street promoted a new approach to children's education and literature, emphasizing the real world and the "here and now".Fernando, Anne E
"IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM: MARGARET WISE BROWN AND MODERNISM,"
''Public Books'' (November 17, 2015). Accessed May 2, 2016. This philosophy influenced Brown's work; she was also inspired by the poet Gertrude Stein, whose literary style influenced Brown's own writing. Brown's first published children's book was ''When the Wind Blew'', published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers. Impressed by Brown's "here and now" style,

W. R. Scott W. R. Scott was a children's literature publisher based in New York City that specialized in visually striking books with a contemporary educational philosophy. W. R. Scott's first editor was Margaret Wise Brown; the company also published a num ...

hired her as his first editor in 1938.DISCOVERING THE UNEXPECTED: THE MARGARET WISE BROWN COLLECTION AT WYNDHAM ROBERTSON LIBRARY, HOLLINS UNIVERSITY BY BETH S. HARRIS https://ejournals.lib.vt.edu/valib/article/view/1138/1475#n4 . Through Scott, she published the ''Noisy Book'' series among others. As editor at Scott, one of Brown's first projects was to recruit contemporary authors to write children's books for the company.

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

and

John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...

neglected to respond, but Brown's hero Gertrude Stein accepted the offer. Stein's book ''The World is Round'' was illustrated by

, who had previously teamed with Brown on W. R. Scott's ''Bumble Bugs and Elephants'', considered "perhaps the first modern board book for babies". Brown and Hurd later teamed on the children's book classics '' The Runaway Bunny'' and '' Goodnight Moon'', published by Harper. In addition to publishing a number of Brown's books, under her editorship W. R. Scott published

Edith Thacher Hurd Edith Thacher Hurd (September 14, 1910 – January 25, 1997) was an American writer of children's books. She published 70 books in her lifetime,Saxon, Wolfgang''The New York Times'' (July 25, 1997). fifty of them illustrated by her husband, Clemen ...

's first book, ''Hurry Hurry'', and

Esphyr Slobodkina Esphyr Slobodkina (russian: Эсфирь Соломоновна Слободкина; September 22, 1908 – July 21, 2002) was a Russian Empire-born American artist, author, and illustrator, best known for her classic children's picture book ''Ca ...

's classic '' Caps for Sale''. The New York Public Library initially banned '' Good Night Moon'' due to the influence of retired librarian Anne Carrol Moore, who reportedly "hated" the book. It wasn't until 1972 that the book was finally made available to patrons. From 1944 to 1946, Doubleday published three picture books written by Brown under the pseudonym "Golden MacDonald" (coopted from her friend's handyman) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Weisgard was a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal in 1946, and he won the 1947 Medal for ''Little Lost Lamb'' and '' The Little Island''. Two more of their collaborations appeared in 1953 and 1956, after Brown's death. ''The Little Fisherman'', illustrated by Dahlov Ipcar, was published in 1945. ''The Little Fur Family'', illustrated by Garth Williams, was published in 1946. Early in the 1950s she wrote several books for the

Little Golden Books Little Golden Books is a series of children's books, published since 1942. ''The Poky Little Puppy'', the eighth release in the series, is the top-selling children's book of all time in the United States.. Many other Little Golden Books have b ...

series, including '' The Color Kittens'', ''Mister Dog'', and '' Scuppers The Sailor Dog.''

Personal life and death

While at Hollins she was briefly engaged. She dated, for some time, an unknown "good, quiet man from Virginia," had a long-running affair with William Gaston,Gaston, 152. and had a summer romance with Preston Schoyer. In the summer of 1940, Brown began a long-term relationship with Blanche Oelrichs (

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Michael Strange), poet/playwright, actress, and the former wife of

John Barrymore John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...

. The relationship, which began as a mentoring one, eventually became romantic and included co-habiting at 10 Gracie Square in Manhattan beginning in 1943. As a studio, they used Cobble Court, a wooden house later moved to Charles Street. Oelrichs, who was almost 20 years Brown's senior, died in 1950. Brown went by various nicknames in different circles of friends. To her Dana Hall and Hollins friends she was "Tim," as her hair was the color of timothy hay. To Bank Street friends she was "Brownie." To William Gaston she was "Goldie," in keeping with the use of Golden MacDonald as the author of ''The Little Island.'' In 1952, Brown met James Stillman 'Pebble' Rockefeller Jr. at a party, and they became engaged. Later that year, while on a book tour in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

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, she died at 42 of an embolism, shortly after surgery for a ruptured appendix. Kicking up her leg to show her nurses how well she was feeling caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge and travel to her heart. A 1992 profile in the New Yorker "The Radical Woman Behind 'Goodnight Moon,'" featured a trip through Brown's "Only House" island cottage in

Vinalhaven, Maine Vinalhaven is a town on the larger of the two Fox Islands in Knox County, Maine, United States. Vinalhaven is also used to refer to the island itself. The population was 1,279 at the 2020 census. It is home to a thriving lobster fishery and ...

which still retains elements of her picture books. The profile includes an interview with Rockefeller, noting that he was one of the few living people who'd known Brown well. They had planned to marry in Panama and honeymoon aboard his boat, the Mandalay, but she did not recover. "She was so full in her own life," Rockefeller told the interviewer. "And yet there must have been a lack, somewhere along the line. But whether she would like an ordinary marriage, with children—I just couldn't really see her in that." In 2022, Rockefeller penned a memoir called ''Wayfarer,'' about his own long life of adventure, including his memories of Brown. 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

Legacy

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'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' the troubled life of Clarke, who has squandered the millions of dollars the books have earned him and who believes that Brown was his mother, a claim others dismiss.Prager, Joshua
"Runaway Money: A Children's Classic, A 9-Year-Old-Boy And a Fateful Bequest – For Albert Clarke, the Rise Of 'Goodnight Moon' Is No Storybook Romance – Broken Homes, Broken Noses"
. ''The Wall Street Journal'', September 8, 2000. Retrieved 2016-03-21. Brown left behind over 70 unpublished manuscripts. After unsuccessfully trying to sell them, her sister Roberta Brown Rauch kept them in a cedar trunk for decades. In 1991, a future biographer, Amy Gary of WaterMark Inc., rediscovered the paper-clipped bundles, more than 500 typewritten pages in all, and set about getting the stories published. Many of Brown's books have been re-issued 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. Full-length biographies on Brown have been written by Leonard S. Marcus (Harper Paperbacks, 1999), and by Amy Gary (Flatiron Books, 2017). There are also several biographies for children, including by Carol Greene (Rookie Biographies, 1994), Jill C. Wheeler (Checkerboard Books, 2006), Mac Barnett (Harper Collins, 2019), and Candice Ransom (William B Eerdmans, 2021). Claudia H. Pearson published a Freudian analysis of Brown's "classic series" of bunny books, entitled ''Have a Carrot'' (Look Again Press, 2010).

Selected works

Big Red Barn, illustrated by Felicia Bond, children's book illustrator

During her lifetime, Brown essentially had four publishers: Harper & Brothers,

, Doubleday, and

. The books written for Doubleday were published under the pseudonym "Golden MacDonald". All were unpaged picture books illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Two appeared after her death. * ''When the Wind Blew'', illus. Rosalie Slocum (Harper & Brothers, 1937); re-issued by HarperCollins in 1986 illus.

Geoffrey Hayes Charles Geoffrey Hayes (13 March 1942 – 30 September 2018) was an English television presenter and actor. He presented Thames Television's children's show ''Rainbow'' from 1972 to 1992. Early life and education Hayes had various jobs such as ...

* ''Bumble Bugs and Elephants: a Big and Little Book'', illus.

(W. R. Scott, 1938) * ''The Little Fireman'', illus.

(W. R. Scott, 1938) * ''Noisy Book'' series **''The Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1939) ** ''The Country Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1940) ** ''The Seashore Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1941) ** ''The Indoor Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1942) **''The Noisy Bird Book,'' illus. Leonard Weisgard (W. R. Scott, 1943) **''The Winter Noisy Book'', illus.

Charles Green Shaw Charles Green Shaw (May 1, 1892 – April 2, 1974) was an American painter, poet, writer, and illustrator. He was a key figure in early American abstract art. Shaw's paintings are part of most major collections of American Art, including the ...

(W. R. Scott, 1947) **''The Quiet Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1950) **''The Summer Noisy Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1951) * ''Baby Animals'', illus. Mary Cameron (Random House, 1941) * '' The Runaway Bunny'', illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1942) * ''Don't Frighten the Lion'', illus. H. A. Rey (Harper, 1942) * ''Big Dog, Little Dog'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943) ‡ * ''Horses'', illus. Dorothy F. Wagstaff (Harper, 1944), as by "Timothy Hay" and "Wag", * '' Red Light Green Light'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1944) ‡ * '' A Child's Good Night Book'', illus. Jean Charlot (W. R. Scott, 1944) * ''They All Saw It'', illus. Ylla (Harper, 1944) * ''The Little Fisherman'', illus. Dahlov Ipcar (W. R. Scott, 1945). Reissued 2015. * ''Little Lost Lamb'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1945) ‡ * '' The Little Island'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1946) ‡ * '' Little Fur Family'', illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1946) * ''The Man in the Manhole and the Fix-It Men'', illus. Bill Ballantine (New York: W. R. Scott, 1946), written by Brown and

as "Juniper Sage", * '' Goodnight Moon'', illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1947) * ''The Golden Sleepy Book'', illus. Garth Williams (Golden Classic, 1948) * ''The Golden Egg Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Little Golden Books, 1947) * ''The Sleepy Little Lion'', illus. Ylla (Harper, 1947) * '' The Important Book'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1949) * ''The Little Cowboy'', illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (W. R. Scott, 1948) * ''The Little Farmer'', illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (W. R. Scott, 1948) * ''Wait till the Moon is Full'', illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1948) * '' The Color Kittens'', illus.

Alice and Martin Provensen Alice Rose Provensen (''née'' Twitchell; August 14, 1918 – April 23, 2018) and Martin Provensen (July 10, 1916 – March 27, 1987) were an American couple who illustrated more than 40 children's books together, 19 of which they also wrote and edi ...

(Little Golden Books, 1949) * ''Two Little Miners'', with

, illus. Richard Scarry (Little Golden Books, 1949) * '' My World'', illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1949) * ''O Said the Squirrel'', illus. Ylla (London:

Harvill Press Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press. History Secker & Warburg Secker & Warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, ...

, 1950) * ''Fox Eyes'', illus. Garth Williams (

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

, 1951) * ''The Duck'', illus. Ylla (Harper; Harvill, 1952) * ''Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself'', illus. Garth Williams (Little Golden Books, 1952) * ''Doctor Squash, The Doll Doctor'', illus David Hitch (Random House, Inc, 1952)

Published posthumously

* ''Little Frightened Tiger'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1953) ‡ * '' Scuppers The Sailor Dog'', illus. Garth Williams (Little Golden Books, 1953) * ''Big Red Barn'', illus. Rosella Hartman (W. R. Scott, 1956); re-issued by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

in 1989 illus. Felicia Bond * ''The Little Brass Band'', illus. Clement Hurd (Harper & Brothers, 1955) * ''Three Little Animals'', illus. Garth Williams (Harper, 1956) * ''Home for a Bunny'', illus. Garth Williams (Golden Press, 1956) * ''Whistle for the Train'', illus. Leonard Weisgard (Doubleday, 1956) ‡ * '' The Dead Bird'', illus.

Remy Charlip Remy or Rémy may refer to: Places * Remy River, a tributary of rivière du Gouffre in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, Canada * Rémy, a French commune in Pas-de-Calais * Remy, Oise, northern France * Remy, Oklahoma, USA * 14683 Remy, an asteroid * Po ...

(Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1958), re-issued in 2016 with illustrations by Christian Robinson * ''Under the Sun and the Moon and Other Poems'', illus. Tom Leonard ( Hyperion, 1993) * ''Sleepy ABC'', illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (HarperCollins, 1994) * ''Another Important Book'', illus. Christopher Raschka (Joanna Cotler Books, 1999) * ''Bunny's Noisy Book'', illus. Lisa McCue ( Hyperion, 2000) * ''The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin'', illus. Richard Egielski (HarperCollins, 2003) * ''The Fathers Are Coming Home'', illus. Stephen Savage ( Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010) * ''Count to 10 with a Mouse'', illus. Kirsten Richards ( Parragon, 2012) * ''Goodnight Little One'', illus. Rebecca Elliott ( Parragon, 2012) * ''Away in My Airplane'', illus. Henry Fisher ( Parragon, 2013) * ''The Diggers'', illus. Antoine Corbineau ( Parragon, 2013) * ''Sleep Tight, Sleepy Bears'', illus. Julie Clay ( Parragon, 2013) * ''One More Rabbit'', illus. Emma Levey ( Parragon, 2014) * ''The Noon Balloon'', illus. Lorena Alvarez ( Parragon, 2014) * ''Goodnight Songs'', multiple illustrators ( Sterling Children's Books, 2014) * ''Goodnight Songs: a Celebration of the Seasons'', ( Sterling Children's Books, 2014) * ''Love Song of the Little Bear'', illus. Katy Hudson ( Parragon, 2015) * ''The Find It Book'', illus. Lisa Sheehan ( Parragon, 2015) * ''Goodnight Little One'', illus. Rebecca Elliot ( Parragon, 2016) * ''Good Day, Good Night'', illus. Loren Long (

, 2017) * ''Be Brave, Little Tiger!'', illus. Jeane Claude ( Parragon, 2017) * ''The Happy Little Rabbit'', illus. Emma Levey ( Parragon, 2017) ‡ Published under the pen name "Golden MacDonald."

References

Citations

General bibliography

* "Beyond the Top 50: Toddler Tales", ''USA Today'' (September 12, 1996). * "Brown, Margaret Wise 1910-1952". ''Something About the Author'' vol. 100 (1999), pp. 35–39. * Churnin, Nancy. "Goodnight and Sweet Dreams", ''The Dallas Morning News'' (January 5, 2001). * Fleischman, John. "Shakespeare of the Sandbox Set", ''Parents'' vol. 63 (July 1988), pp. 92–96. * Gary, Amy. ''The Great Green Room: The Brilliant Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown'', Flatiron Books (2017) * Gaston, Bibi. ''The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and Her Granddaughter's Search for Home'', William Morrow (2008). * Groth, Chuck. "An Heirloom for Fans of ''Goodnight Moon''", ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' (February 19, 1995). * Hurd, Clement. "Remembering Margaret Wise Brown", ''Horn Book'' (October 1983). * Marcus, Leonard S., ''Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon'', Beacon Press (February 1992). * Mainiero, Lina. "Margaret Wise Brown." ''American Women Writers: Volume 1''. Frederick Unger Press. (1979), pp. 254 - 257. * Mitchell, Lucy Sprague Mitchell. "Margaret Wise Brown, 1910-1952", ''Bank Street'' (1953). * Pate, Nancy. "Good Gosh: ''Goodnight Moon'' is 50", ''Orlando Sentinel'' (February 24, 1997). * * Pichey, Martha. "Bunny Dearest", ''Vanity Fair'' (December 2000), pp. 172–87.

External links

http://www.margaretwisebrownarchive.com Fan website with Bibliography includes Adapted Stories, Articles & Essays, Anthologies, Biographies, Collections, Ghost Written ,Periodicals,Picture Books all with Pictures of covers.
Timothy HayGolden MacDonald
an
Juniper Sage
at Library of Congress Authorities, with catalog records {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Margaret Wise 1910 births 1952 deaths American children's writers Bisexual women Bisexual writers Deaths from embolism Hollins University alumni American LGBT writers LGBT people from New York (state) Writers from Brooklyn People from Windham County, Connecticut Writers from Connecticut Bank Street College of Education alumni People from Vinalhaven, Maine People from Greenpoint, Brooklyn Dana Hall School alumni 20th-century LGBT people