The Cat in the Hat book's title character in the tradition of con artists in American art, including the title characters from Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" and L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Nel also contends that Geisel identified with the Cat, pointing to a self portrait of Geisel in which he appears as the Cat, which was published alongside a profile about him in "The Saturday Evening Post" on July 6, 1957. Michael K. Frith, who worked as Geisel's editor, concurs, arguing that "The Cat in the Hat and Ted Geisel were inseparable and the same. I think there's no question
The Cat in the Hat his work and life. As Robert L. Bernstein later said of that period, "The more I saw of him, the more he liked being in that room and creating all by himself." Pease points to Helen's recovery from Guillain–Barré syndrome, which she was diagnosed with in 1954, as the marker for this change. Geisel agreed to write "The Cat in the Hat" at the request of William Spaulding of Houghton Mifflin; however, because Geisel was under contract with Random House, the head of Random House, Bennett Cerf, made a deal with Houghton Mifflin. Random House retained the rights to trade