He had been a bathtub salesman, she an art student, German Jews from Hamburg who’d met briefly as children and reunited years later while working in Rio de Janeiro.
Their names were Hans Augusto Rey and Margarete Elisabeth Waldstein – but the world would forever know them as the husband-and-wife literary team of H.A. and Margret Rey, creators of one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature, Curious George.
As the story goes, Hans and Margret were married in Rio in 1935 and moved to Paris after falling in love with the city during their European honeymoon. A French publisher noticed some newspaper cartoons Hans had drawn of a giraffe and backed his first children’s book, “Raffy and the Nine Monkeys” (known in American and British editions as “Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys”).
But on the morning of June 14, 1940, German troops advanced on Paris. Hans and Margret, knowing they had to escape, set out on two bicycles he had cobbled together from spare parts. Carrying only a bit of food and five manuscripts – one of which was “Curious George” – they rode for four days until they reached the French-Spanish border. They sold their bikes for train fare to Lisbon, Portugal, and from there they made their way to Brazil and then New York City, eventually settling in Cambridge, Mass.
“Curious George” was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1941. It has sold more than 25 million copies.
In their books, Hans usually was in charge of the ideas and illustrations while Margret handled the plot and the writing, but their publisher notes that their lines of responsibility were often blurred.
Hans died in 1977 and Margret in 1996.
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