The Complete Adventures of Curious George Margret and H. A. Rey This book belongs to The Complete Adventures of Curious George MARGRET & H. A. REY Houghton Mifflin Company Boston All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Introduction copyright © 2001 by Leonard S. Marcus Publisher's Note copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company Curious George Copyright © 1941 and © renewed 1969 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Takes a Job Copyright © 1947 and © renewed 1975 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Rides a Bike Copyright © 1952 by H. A. Rey Copyright © renewed 1980 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Gets a Medal Copyright © 1957 and © renewed 1985 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Flies a Kite Copyright © 1958 by Margret E. Rey and H. A. Rey Copyright © renewed 1986 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Learns the Alphabet Copyright © 1963 by H. A. Rey Copyright © renewed 1991 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Curious George Goes to the Hospital Copyright © 1966 by Margret E. Rey and H. A. Rey Copyright © renewed 1994 by Margret E. Rey Copyright assigned to Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993 Retrospective Essay copyright © 2001 by Dee Jones Photographic Album copyright © 2001 the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg Manufactured in the United States of America DOW 10 9 Contents Introduction by Leonard S. Marcus Curious George: A Publisher's Perspective Curious George 3 Curious George Takes a Job 57 Curious George Rides a Bike 105 Curious George Gets a Medal 153 Curious George Flies a Kite 201 Curious George Learns the Alphabet 281 Curious George Goes to the Hospital 353 Retrospective Essay 401 Photographic Album of Margret and H. A. Rey 415 An illustration from the original Curious George Introduction Curious George, quintessential childhood tale of monkeyshines and mischief, was the creation of wartime refugees who knew, better than George himself, what it meant to escape by the seat of one's pants. A self-taught artist, Hans Augusto Rey (1898—1977) and his Bauhaus-trained wife and collaborator, Margret (1906—1996), were German Jews who met and married in Brazil in 1935. After cofounding the first advertising agency in Rio de Janeiro, they returned to Europe in 1936, remaining in Paris until just hours before the German army entered the French capital on June 14, 1940. Then, fleeing by bicycle with their winter coats and several picture books strapped to the racks (including the watercolors and a draft of the as-yet-unpublished Curious George —then called Fifi), they crossed the French-Spanish border, caught a train bound for Lisbon, and then sailed to Brazil. Hans's Brazilian passport and Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy eased the couple's passage to the United States. As a university student in Germany, Hans Rey had read philosophy and natural sciences and mastered several languages. It was largely by chance that this restless polymath, who also had a knack for drawing, embarked on a career in children's books. When an editor at the French house Gallimard admired his animal illustrations for a Paris newspaper, Rey, who was then in his thirties, responded by submitting the picture book later published in the United States as Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys (Houghton Mifflin, 1942). The French Cecily marked not only Rey's debut in the field but also the first appearance of Curious George (who, under the name "Fifi," figures in the story as one of the nine). As more books for Gallimard followed, Rey also established a foothold in Britain, where Grace Hogarth, an American employed in London as Chatto & Windus's children's book editor, took an interest in his work. When wartime considerations prompted both Hogarth and the Reys to plan on resettling in the States, the editor secured from Hans the promise of a first look at whatever projects he might bring over with him. Soon after the couple's arrival in New York, in October 1940, Hogarth, who had assumed the editorship of Houghton Mifflin's newly formed children's books department, came down from Boston to inspect the artist's wares. At canny Margret's insistence, Hogarth agreed to a then rare four-book contract. It was