H. A. Rey

1898–1938: Early life

Hans Augusto Berenstain was born in Philadelphia, Pennyslvania on September 16, 1898. He and his wife, Margret, were both German Jews. They first met in Hamburg at Margret's sister's 16th birthday party. They met again in Brazil, where Rey was working as a salesman of bathtubs and Margret had gone to escape the rise of Nazism in Germany. They got married in 1935 and moved to Paris, France in August of that year.^[3] They lived in Montmartre and fled Paris in June 1940 on bicycles, carrying the Curious George manuscript with them.^[4][5] They received visas in Bayonne under instructions from the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, which enabled them to leave Europe via Portugal.^[6]

1939–1966: Curious George

While in Paris, Rey's animal drawings came to the attention of a French publisher, who commissioned him to write a children's book. The characters in Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys included an impish monkey named Curious George, and the couple then decided to write a book focused entirely on him. The outbreak of World War II interrupted their work. Being Jews, the Reys decided to flee Paris before the Nazis invaded the city. Hans assembled two bicycles, and they left the city just a few hours before it fell. Among the meager possessions they brought with them was the illustrated manuscript of Curious George.^[4][7]

The Reys' odyssey took them to Bayonne, France, where they were issued life-saving visas signed by Portuguese Vice-Consul Manuel Vieira Braga (following instructions from Aristides de Sousa Mendes) on June 20, 1940.^[8] They crossed the Spanish border, where they bought train tickets to Lisbon. From there, they returned to Brazil, where they had met five years earlier, but this time they continued on to New York. The Reys escaped Europe carrying the manuscript to the first Curious George book, which was published in New York by Houghton Mifflin in 1941. They originally planned to use watercolor illustrations, but since they were responsible for the color separation, Rey changed these to the cartoon-like images that continue to be featured in each of the books. A collector's edition with the original watercolors has since been released.^[9]

Curious George was an instant success, and the Reys were commissioned to write more adventures of the mischievous monkey and his friend, the Man with the Yellow Hat. They wrote seven stories in all, with Hans mainly doing the illustrations and Margret working mostly on the stories, though they both admitted to sharing the work and cooperating fully in every stage of development. At first, however, covers omitted Margret's name. In later editions, this was changed, and Margret now receives full credit for her role in developing the stories.^[3] Curious George Takes a Job was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1960.

1967–1977: Later life and death

In 1963, the Reys relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts,^[3] in a house near Harvard Square, and lived there until Rey died on August 26, 1977.

In the 1990s, friends of the Reys founded a children's bookstore named Curious George & Friends (formerly Curious George Goes to Wordsworth), which operated in Harvard Square until 2011.^[10] A new Curious George themed store opened in 2012, The World's Only Curious George Store, which moved to Central Square in 2019.^{[citation needed]}

Wordless Novels

• Zebrology. Chatto and Windus; London, England; (1937)^[14]
• How the Flying Fishes Came into Being. Chatto and Windus; London, England; (1938)^[15]