Curious George

Curious George is a series of children’s books created by married couple Hans Reyersbach and Margarete Waldstein first published in 1941. The stories feature the titular George, a mischievous, tailless, almost-always-smiling monkey exploring New York City, and his human companion, the Man in the Yellow Hat.

The series consists of seven books written and illustrated by the couple, who would become known by their pen names Margret and H.A. Rey, from 1941 to 1966, as well as later additions, not by the Reys, commissioned by the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the 1990s.

Origin story

The Curious George character first appeared in the book Raffy and the 9 Monkeys, published in 1939 while Reyersbach and Waldstein, who would adopt the pen names Margret and H.A. Rey, were living in Paris. George was originally named Fifi; he, as well as the book, was renamed for publication in Great Britain and the United States. But Curious George, whose first standalone book follows a voyage from an African jungle to a New York City zoo, would not become the hero of his own story until the Reys underwent a perilous journey of their own.

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In June 1940 the Nazis were poised to invade Paris; the Reys, both Jewish, knew they had to leave the city before it was occupied. They escaped on the evening of June 12, 1940, riding two bicycles that Hans had cobbled together from spare parts. Their journey—undertaken with only some clothes, food, and the couple’s in-progress manuscripts—took them from France to Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and, finally, New York City. Curious George’s first standalone book was published there, by Houghton Mifflin, in 1941.

A true collaboration

Though the Curious George books were originally credited to H.A. Rey alone, the monkey’s adventures are now acknowledged as a true collaboration between Hans and Margret; later editions bear both names. Margret Rey would say that she got ideas for George’s adventures from news articles or dinner party conversations, but the crafting of the books did not come easily: “We write and rewrite, we draw and redraw, we fight over the plot, the beginning, the ending, the illustrations—as a matter of fact our work is nearly the only thing we do fight about.”

The Reys’ stories are characterized by misadventure: Across just two books, George escapes both the zoo and prison, becomes a dishwasher, a muralist, a window-washer, and even a movie star. The little monkey often finds himself in peril and experiences physical harm, including breaking his leg. But George’s misadventures are part of the appeal for children, who themselves are navigating a big, foreign world that they want to better understand—just like George. (The Curious George stories published in the 1990s, after the Reys’ deaths, tend to be shorter and feature simpler plots and reflect more contemporary themes than the sometimes outdated originals. For example, in an original story, George smokes a pipe.)

Echoes in history and literature

Today’s readers may be hard-pressed to extricate Curious George’s exploits from the Reys’ escape from the Nazis; the series seems to belong to the same lineage of children’s literature that includes the Moomins, a family of white, hippo-like creatures created by Finnish political cartoonist Tove Jansson, and Paddington Bear, a refugee bear whom writer Michael Bond was inspired to create after witnessing the influx of young Jewish refugees to London. “These stories are written not necessarily for children under duress,” wrote Rivka Galchen in the New Yorker, “but, instead, by adults who are themselves in duress, and who now prefer to devote their time to making children happy.”

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Following Hans’s death in 1977, Margret dedicated herself to expanding Curious George’s world outside of the written word. Today Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat appear across apparel, toys, games (both analog and digital), television, and film. More than 75 million copies of the Curious George books have been published; they have been translated into 25 languages.

Despite the warm feelings of nostalgia often associated with Curious George, some critics and historians have criticized the ways in which George’s journey to America from Africa echoes the Middle Passage.