I'm not sure whether to be disturbed or delighted by my discovery that, as well as creating Grinches and Loraxes, Cats in Hats and Hortons, Dr Seuss also drew nudes. The late Theodor Geisel, who would have turned 108 last week, is famous for his children's books but he also, it turns out, was the author of a little-known picture book for adults: The Seven Lady Godivas.
First published in 1939, the book is a "tongue-in-cheek reworking" of the legends of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom, featuring seven Godiva sisters who are each engaged to a Peeping brother. When Lord Godiva dies falling from a horse, the girls "were left with a grim obligation. Horses must be studied and charted, made safe for posterity." So they each set out to discover "a new Horse Truth of benefit to all mankind" – completely naked, of course. "Nowhere," says their father, "could there be a group of young ladies that wasted less time upon frivol and froth. No fluffy-duff primping, no feather, no fuss. They were simply themselves and chose not to disguise it."
Take a look at some of the pictures here; they're hugely Seussian. Warm-hearted and faintly ridiculous, they're also utterly unerotic (and strangely nipple-free). Seuss knew this: "I attempted to draw the sexiest babes I could, but they came out looking absurd," he said. "I don't think I drew proper naked ladies. I think their ankles came out wrong, and things like that … Look at them – they're neuter and sexless and have no shape at all."
The book did terribly: just 2,500 copies were sold out of a 10,000-copy print run, and when it was reissued in 1987 "by multitudinous demand" it flopped again. "Apparently the reading public is not yet ready for a book of exaggerated breasts and buttocks caricatured in Dr Seuss's distinctive style," writes Daniel Donoghue in Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend.
I know what he means; Dr Seuss nudes are rather like seeing Quentin Blake or Helen Oxenbury erotica – the well-known styles of children's illustrators made adult, and thus faintly disturbing. They're also – dare I say it? – a little bit rubbish. Seuss himself gave up on adult books after this failure. "I'd rather write for kids," he said. "They're more appreciative; adults are obsolete children, and the hell with them."
So, am I disturbed or delighted to have stumbled on this new facet to one of my favourite (because isn't he everyone's favourite?) children's authors? On the whole I think I'm going to plump for delighted – if only, as Maria Popova says here, because the pictures "offer endearing reassurance that even genius can falter". What a comfort to us all. Now if only I had a spare £800 to get my hands on this signed edition …
