Theodor Seuss Giesel -- better known to millions of his fans as Dr. Seuss -- was born the son of a park superintendant in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904. After studying at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and later at Oxford University in England, he became a magazine humourist and cartoonist, and an advertising man. He soon turned his many talents to writing children's books, and his first book -- And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street -- was published in 1937. His greatest claim to fame was the one and only The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957, the first of a hugely successful range of early learning books.