Eric Carle "The New York Times". Later he became the art director of an advertising agency. Educator and author Bill Martin, Jr. first noticed the illustration of a red lobster Carle had created for an advertisement and asked him to collaborate on a picture book. "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" was published by Henry Holt & Co. in 1967 and became a best-seller. This began Carle's true career; soon he was writing and illustrating his own stories. His first books as both author and illustrator were " to the Zoo" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969).
Eric, or, Little by Little book is credited with helping to increase the popularity of the first name "Eric" in English-speaking countries — although not with Eric Arthur Blair (the writer and journalist George Orwell) who disliked his given name because of its association with Farrar's book. In later years, it fell out of favour, in part because of its religious earnestness. For example, in Rudyard Kipling's "Stalky & Co.", published late in 1899, the protagonist Beetle and his friends frequently made fun of "Eric", e.g. E. Nesbit included it in a list of didactic children's books which were "impossible to read." Eric, or, Little