Tweet
Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83
Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.
The cause was complications from a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor.
Roundly praised, intermittently censored and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,†which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.
Among the other titles he wrote and illustrated, all from Harper & Row, are “In the Night Kitchen†(1970) and “Outside Over There†(1981), which together with “Where the Wild Things Are†form a trilogy; “The Sign on Rosie’s Door†(1960); “Higglety Pigglety Pop!†(1967); and “The Nutshell Library†(1962), a boxed set of four tiny volumes comprising “Alligators All Around,†“Chicken Soup With Rice,†“One Was Johnny†and “Pierre.â€
>
Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.
The cause was complications from a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor.
Roundly praised, intermittently censored and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,†which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.
Among the other titles he wrote and illustrated, all from Harper & Row, are “In the Night Kitchen†(1970) and “Outside Over There†(1981), which together with “Where the Wild Things Are†form a trilogy; “The Sign on Rosie’s Door†(1960); “Higglety Pigglety Pop!†(1967); and “The Nutshell Library†(1962), a boxed set of four tiny volumes comprising “Alligators All Around,†“Chicken Soup With Rice,†“One Was Johnny†and “Pierre.â€
>
Comment