How a Dr. Seuss Tale Was Found in a Box
蘇斯博士的故事走出箱子
By Alexandra Alter

After Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, died in 1991, his widow, Audrey Geisel and an assistant cleared out his office, donating most of his illustrations and drafts to the University of California, San Diego, and stashing others in a box.
以筆名「蘇斯博士」聞名的希奧多．蘇斯．蓋索1991年去世後，遺孀奧黛麗．蓋索和一名助理清理他的辦公室，把他大部分插畫和草稿捐給聖地牙哥加州大學，其餘藏入一只箱子。

It wasn’t until October 2013 that they closely examined the contents of that box. They found a set of colored alphabet flash cards, some rough sketches titled “The Horse Museum,” and a folder marked “Noble Failures,” with whimsical drawings that he had been unable to find a place for in his stories.
直到2013年10月，她們才仔細檢查箱子裡的東西。她們找到一組彩色的字母圖卡、題為「馬博物館」的一些草圖，以及一個標示為「高尚的失敗之作」的資料夾，裡面有些異想天開的圖畫，他找不到適當的位置放進他的故事裡。

But alongside the orphaned sketches was a more complete project labeled “The Pet Shop,” 16 black-and-white illustrations, with text that he had typed on paper and taped to the drawings. The pages were stained and yellowed, but the story was all there, in Dr. Seuss’ unmistakable rollicking rhymes.
不過，另有一套較完整的畫與這些孤單草圖放在一起，標題為「寵物商店」，計有16幅黑白插畫，並有他用打字機打在紙上的文字，用膠帶貼在圖畫上。這些畫頁已有汙漬且泛黃，但故事俱在，以蘇斯博士的招牌嬉鬧韻文寫成。

“We didn’t know that we had such a treasure,” said the assistant, Claudia Prescott, who started working for Mr. Geisel in 1972 and now helps Ms. Geisel, 93, run Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
助理克勞蒂亞．普萊斯柯特說：「我們不知道我們有這個寶藏。」她從1972年開始為蓋索先生工作，現在協助蓋索太太經營蘇斯博士公司。

Through a meticulous reconstruction of Mr. Geisel’s creative process, those abandoned pages have yielded an unexpected new Dr. Seuss book, now called “What Pet Should I Get?” The publication of the book on July 28 by Random House, with a first printing of one million copies, added a surprising coda to Dr. Seuss’ sizable canon.
經由一絲不苟地重建蓋索的創作過程，這些被捨棄的畫頁已化為一本意料之外的蘇斯博士新書，現在的書名為「我該買什麼寵物？」由藍燈書屋在7月28日出版，首刷100萬冊，為蘇斯博士數量可觀的作品集增添令人驚喜的結尾。

Mr. Geisel wrote and illustrated 44 children’s books in his lifetime, including classics like “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” which helped generations of children learn to read. His books have sold more than 650 million copies globally, and sales continue to rise each year.
蓋索一生寫和畫了44本童書，包括一些經典童書，像是「魔法靈貓」和「綠雞蛋和火腿」，幫助世世代代的兒童學習閱讀。他的書在全球賣出超過6億5000萬本，而且每年銷量持續增加。

The last original Dr. Seuss book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!,” was released in 1990, and no one at Random House expected a new book to appear 24 years after Mr. Geisel’s death. The only person still at the company who had worked directly with him was Cathy Goldsmith, the designer and art director on his last six books.
蘇斯博士最後一本原著「喔，你將要去的地方！」在1990年出版，藍燈書屋內部沒人料到在蓋索去世24年後，還會出現一本新書。曾與他合作過的人，只剩下一人還在公司裡，是他最後六本書的設計兼藝術總監凱西．高德史密斯。

Within a week of learning of the manuscript, she was on a flight to San Diego. Ms. Goldsmith, now the vice president and associate publishing director for Random House/Golden Books Young Readers, was nervous about turning the manuscript into a book. No one knew why Mr. Geisel had set it aside.
得知有這些手稿不到一周，高德史密斯小姐就搭機趕往聖地牙哥。她現任藍燈書屋/金書兒童讀物的副總裁兼副發行總監，對於要把手稿變成一本書頗感忐忑。沒人知道蓋索為何把這些手稿擱在一邊。

Though he published his first children’s book to acclaim in 1937, it wasn’t until 20 years later, with “The Cat in the Hat,” that Dr. Seuss became a beloved and influential brand. The next few years were prolific. Mr. Geisel wrote “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!,” “Yertle the Turtle,” “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” and “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” in quick succession.
雖然他出版的第一本童書在1937年獲得好評，卻直到20年後的「魔法靈貓」，蘇斯博士才成為深受喜愛和具有影響力的品牌。接下來幾年很多產。蓋索寫了「鬼精靈」、「烏龜耶爾特」、「魔法靈貓續集」、「一條魚、二條魚、紅的魚、藍的魚」，一本接著一本出版。

It was then, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, that Ms. Goldsmith and the Seuss archivists believe he wrote the story about the pet shop. The children in the book are virtually identical to the boy and the girl in “One Fish Two Fish.”
高德史密斯和蘇斯博士的案卷保管人相信，就在那個時期，1950年代末或1960年代初，他寫了寵物商店的故事。書中的兒童與「一條魚、二條魚」中的那個男孩和女孩一模一樣。

A perfectionist, Mr. Geisel took work to Random House only when it was complete. The manuscript was several steps shy of finished. He typically typed up the words for each page, then taped them to the drawings. When he revised the text, he taped new versions over the old ones. But the paper had come loose, so it was unclear what the final text should be in the recovered manuscript. Some images had five possible rhyme schemes.
蓋索是完美主義者，只有在作品完成後，才會送到藍燈書屋。手稿還差幾個步驟才完成。他通常會在每一頁打上文字，接著把這些字用膠帶貼在圖畫上。當他修改文字時，他把新稿貼在舊稿上。不過手稿脫頁了，因此不清楚在找到的手稿中，最後的文字版本是什麼。一些圖畫有五種可能的韻文。

The theme of “What Pet Should I Get?” is making choices, and like the boy and the girl in the story, who waver over getting a cat, a dog, a bird or a fish, Ms. Goldsmith faced a maze of decisions. When it was unclear which version of the text he had intended to use, Ms. Goldsmith and two colleagues taped the pages to the wall and read the different versions aloud to see which phrases flowed best.
「我該買什麼寵物？」的主題是選擇，像故事中的男孩和女孩，他們猶豫著要買一隻貓、一條狗、一隻鳥或一條魚，高德史密斯面對如迷宮般的各種抉擇。當不清楚他想用哪個版本的文字時，高德史密斯和兩位同事就把書頁貼在牆上，大聲朗讀不同的版本，看哪些用語最流暢。

Ms. Goldsmith studied the books Mr. Geisel had published around the same period, when he favored bold primary colors, and picked out similar yellows and blues for the backgrounds. She printed scans of the black-and-white drawings and colored them in with pencils. Then she followed his method of picking hues from a chart from the printing press and marking up each page like a paint-by-numbers project. “I figured if it worked for him, it would work for me,” she said.
高德史密斯研究蓋索大約同時期出版的書，當時他偏愛醒目的三原色，並選擇類似的黃色和藍色當做背景。她把這些黑白圖畫掃描列印出來，再用鉛筆上顏色。接著她按照他從印刷機圖卡挑選顏色的方式，在每一頁做記號，像是用數字標明塗色的計畫。「我想，如果他這樣做行得通，我也行得通。」

The story ends on an uncertain note as the boy and the girl leave the store with a basket. A pair of eyes peer out, but the animal remains hidden. Ms. Goldsmith declined to guess what pet they had bought, venturing only, “It’s probably not a fish.”
故事在懸疑氣氛中結束，男孩和女孩帶著一個籃子走出店門。有一雙眼睛在窺看，但動物本身藏起來了。高德史密斯拒絕猜測他們買了什麼寵物，只這麼說，「應該不是一條魚」。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/books/dr-seuss-book-a-discovery-in-a-box-and-then-a-reconstruction.html

2015-08-04聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 田思怡譯 原文參見紐時週報十二版上