Margaret Wise Brown

Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway Bunny (1942), both illustrated by Clement Hurd. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Besides her real name, she also used the noms-de-plume Golden MacDonald for Doubleday and Company, Timothy Hay for Harper & Brothers and Juniper Sage (her collaboration with Edith Thacher Hurd) for William R. Scott, Inc.<ref name="bbjrlife461202">Bliven, Jr., Bruce. "Child's Best Seller," LIFE (magazine), 2 December 1946. Retrieved 21 June 2025.</ref>

Life and career

Brown was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the middle child of three children of Maude Margaret (Johnson) and Robert Bruce Brown.<ref name="degrummond"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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 later attended Chateau Brilliantmont boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1923,<ref>Marcus 20-21.</ref><ref>Mainiero, 254.</ref> while her parents were living in India and Canterbury, Connecticut.Template:Fact

In 1925, Brown attended The Kew-Forest School.<ref>Marcus, 21</ref> She began attending Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia.Template:Fact

Brown was an avid, lifelong beagler and was noted for her ability to keep pace, on foot, with the hounds.<ref name="Gary" />

Following her graduation with a B.A. in English<ref name="degrummond"/> 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".<ref name=Fernando>Fernando, Anne E. "IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM: MARGARET WISE BROWN AND MODERNISM," Public Books (November 17, 2015). Accessed May 2, 2016.</ref> This philosophy influenced Brown's work; she was also inspired by the poet Gertrude Stein, whose literary style influenced Brown's own writing.<ref name=Fernando />

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 hired her as his first editor in 1938.<ref name="disc">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 Template:Webarchive.</ref> 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 and John Steinbeck neglected to respond, but Brown's hero, Gertrude Stein, accepted the offer.<ref name=Fernando /> Stein's book The World is Round was illustrated by Clement Hurd,<ref>Popova, Maria. "7 (More) Obscure Children’s Books by Famous “Adult” Lit Authors," BrainPickings (July 25, 2011)</ref> who had previously teamed with Brown on W. R. Scott's Bumble Bugs and Elephants, considered "perhaps the first modern board book for babies".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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's first book, Hurry Hurry, and Esphyr Slobodkina's classic Caps for Sale.Template:Fact

The New York Public Library initially banned Goodnight 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

From 1944 to 1946, Doubleday published three picture books written by Brown under the pseudonym "Golden MacDonald" (coopted from her friend's handyman)<ref name="Gary">Template:Cite book</ref> 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 series, including The Color Kittens, Mister Dog, and Scuppers The Sailor Dog.Template:Fact

Personal life and death

While at Hollins, Brown was briefly engaged.<ref>Marcus, 32.</ref> She dated, for some time, an unknown "good, quiet man from Virginia",<ref>Marcus, 77.</ref> had a long-running affair with William Gaston,<ref>Marcus, 97–98, 114, 136.</ref><ref name="Gaston, 152">Gaston, 152.</ref> and had a summer romance with Preston Schoyer.<ref>Marcus, 147–48.</ref>

In the summer of 1940, Brown began a long-term relationship with Blanche Oelrichs (pen name Michael Strange), poet/playwright, actress, and the former wife of John Barrymore. The relationship, which began as a mentoring one, eventually became romantic and included cohabiting at 10 Gracie Square in New York, beginning in 1943.<ref>Marcus, pp. 167–78, 251.</ref> 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.Template:Fact

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.<ref>Marcus, 23.</ref> To Bank Street friends, she was "Brownie".<ref>Marcus, 62.</ref> To William Gaston she was "Goldie", in keeping with the use of Golden MacDonald as the author of The Little Island.<ref name="Gaston, 152"/> 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, France, 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.<ref name="longbio" />

A 2022 profile in the New Yorker, entitled "The Radical Woman Behind 'Goodnight Moon'", featured a trip through Brown's "Only House" island cottage in Vinalhaven, Maine, 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.<ref name="newyorker.com">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Rockefeller told the interviewer:

In 2018, Rockefeller released a memoir called Wayfarer, about his own long life of adventure, including his memories of Brown.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

By the time of her death, Brown had authored well over 100 books. Her ashes were scattered at her island home, "The Only House", in Vinalhaven, Maine.<ref name="longbio"/>Template:Clear left

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 troubled life of Clarke, who squandered the millions of dollars the books had earned him and who believed that Brown was his mother, a claim others dismiss.<ref name="prager">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" Template:Webarchive. The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2000. Retrieved 2024-06-19.</ref> Clarke died in 2018. His four children now hold the royalty rights, which will expire in 2043. <ref name="noah">Noah, Timothy. "Defund the Dead" Template:Webarchive. The New Republic, December 24, 2021. Retrieved 2024-06-19.</ref>

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.<ref>"Pop Culture News: A Trunkful of Treasures: Margaret Wise Brown's Manuscripts" Template:Webarchive. Entertainment Weekly #88 (Oct. 18, 1991). Retrieved 2008-11-23.</ref>

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).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> There are also several biographies for children, including by Carol Greene (Rookie Biographies, 1994), Jill C. Wheeler (Checkerboard Books, 2006), Mac Barnett (HarperCollins, 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).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2016, Hollins University honored her by establishing the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Selected works

Template:Stack During her lifetime, Brown essentially had four publishers: Harper & Brothers, W. R. Scott, Doubleday, and Little Golden Books. 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.Template:Fact

• When the Wind Blew, illus. Rosalie Slocum (Harper & Brothers, 1937); re-issued by HarperCollins in 1986 illus. Geoffrey Hayes
• Bumble Bugs and Elephants: a Big and Little Book, illus. Clement Hurd (W. R. Scott, 1938)
• The Little Fireman, illus. Esphyr Slobodkina (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 (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", Template:OCLC
• 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 Edith Thacher HurdTemplate:Citation needed as "Juniper Sage", Template:OCLC
• Goodnight Moon, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1947)
• The Golden Egg Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Little Golden Books, 1947)
• The Sleepy Little Lion, illus. Ylla (Harper, 1947)
• The Golden Sleepy Book, illus. Garth Williams (Golden Classic, 1948)
• 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 Important Book, illus. Leonard Weisgard (Harper, 1949)
• The Color Kittens, illus. Alice and Martin Provensen (Little Golden Books, 1949)
• Two Little Miners, with Edith Thacher Hurd, illus. Richard Scarry (Little Golden Books, 1949)
• My World, illus. Clement Hurd (Harper, 1949)
• A Pussycat's Christmas, illus. Helen Stone (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1949)
• O Said the Squirrel, illus. Ylla (London: Harvill Press, 1950)
• Fox Eyes, illus. Garth Williams (Pantheon Books, 1951)
• The Train to Timbuctoo, illus. Art Seiden (Little Golden Books, 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, 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 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 (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 (HarperCollins, 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."

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. In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown, Flatiron Books (2017) Template:Isbn
• Gaston, Bibi. The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and Her Granddaughter's Search for Home, William Morrow (2008). Template:ISBN
• 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). Template:ISBN
• 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).
• Template:Cite book
• Pichey, Martha. "Bunny Dearest", Vanity Fair (December 2000), pp. 172–87.

External links

• Template:LCAuth
• Timothy Hay, Golden MacDonald, and Juniper Sage at Library of Congress Authorities, with catalog records
• Margaret Wise Brown Archive – fan website with bibliography of Adapted Stories, Articles & Essays, Anthologies, Biographies, Collections, Ghost Written, Periodicals, and Picture Books, all with cover images
• Margaret Wise Brown Papers, Special Collections at the University of Southern Mississippi (de Grummond Children's Literature Collection)