The Communist Comes Back

All this Communist talk isn't lost on readers—bloggers just love to dig deep into Seuss's Communist brain. But according to Seussologist Dr. Charles Cohen, Seuss voted Democratic (source). Interesting development, eh?

Back up a second. In 1957, when The Cat came on the scene, Seuss was probably most famous for his character Horton the Elephant, the very politicized star of Horton Hatches the Egg (1940) and Horton Hears a Who (1954). The Cat came into being a mere three years after Horton part deux, and it seems to be a continuation of Seuss's exploration of his own political identity.

Seuss's ideas about Communism, anarchism, and the range of other political ideas at play in the late 1950s are smattered throughout the first Cat book, but it's The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958) that's most responsible for Seuss's reputation as a Communist. That's right—get ready for the sequel.