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DR. SEUSS [THEODOR GEISEL.]
Tadd and Todd. Published in
Redbook
magazine,August 1950, with dated publisher’s label
on verso. Ink and watercolor on board. 203x184 mm; 8x7
1
/
4
inches, on 10
1
/
4
x10
1
/
4
-inch
board. Signed in lower left image. Image toned, abrasion and adhesive residue in lower
margin, not affecting image; mounting tape on verso.
[12,000/18,000]
“Tadd and Todd” is a recently re-discovered tale by Theodor Geisel. Largely forgotten after its
appearance in Redbook, the story was given a second life by Seuss scholar Charles D. Cohen who
gathered seven obscure Seuss works and published them in “The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost
Stories” with Random House in 2011.This illustration depicts the crux of the tale wherein Tadd,
the reluctant twin who longs for uniqueness, struts his newfound look of dyed red hair, a flower betwixt
the toes of one bare foot, and balancing a curious collection of animals and other accoutrements.
“Twins are one of the most frequently recurring images in Ted Geisel’s work. His fascinations with
them began in childhood, and he continued to encounter multiple births in a variety of forms
throughout his life.When he was eight years old, conjoined twins Mary and Margaret were born in
Holyoke, Massachusetts, just north of Ted’s Springfield home. . . . Childhood is fraught with many
difficulties, and twins face the additional challenge of balancing their own individuality against a
shared identity with their sibling. Ted recognized this problem of twindom, and his sympathy for
their plight struck a chord with generations of twins who received ‘Tadd and Todd’ in faded black-
and-white photocopies over the decades.Ted’s twins finally make their vibrant reappearance here, in
one of the best of Dr. Seuss’s lost stories”—Cohen,The Bippolo Seed, page 11.