His Dr. Seuss collection is nothing to Sneetch at

SOUTH DEERFIELD -- When Charles D. Cohen got curious about wines in 1989, he didn't waste any time becoming a connoisseur. Within a year, he had sampled no less than 600 different ones.

The 43-year-old dentist has devoted the same intensity to other passions, from guitar and photography to a study of late-19th- and early-20th-century baseball cards.

Now it's all about Dr. Seuss.

Over the last 15 years, Cohen has amassed thousands of pieces of memorabilia that document Theodor Seuss Geisel's life and work. That collection is the basis of his new, illustrated biography, "The Seuss, the Whole Seuss and Nothing But the Seuss" (Random House, 390 pages, $35), released this month to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Geisel's birthday. Geisel died in 1991.

His collection, which documents Geisel's early work as a cartoonist, filmmaker, and advertising artist as well as his better-known legacy of children's stories, is a wild assortment that includes political cartoons, Geisel's 1930s color ads for Flit insecticide produced by Standard Oil, a raft of lost and forgotten Seuss stories, assorted sculptures, and promotional Seuss character bed linens.

For all of Cohen's dedication to Seuss, though, his home, a quiet brown ranch adjacent to his dental office on the outskirts of his small Western Massachusetts hometown, is no Seuss museum. Cohen and his wife, Margarita, have an agreement that limits their home decor mostly to furniture and objects they are both attached to. Much of his Seuss collection is kept in a storage area or on out-of-the-way shelves.

One of the first things visitors see as they step through the doorway is a yellow Sneetch at least the size of a Great Dane, along with a few framed pieces of Geisel's artwork. There is no assembly of his Cat in the Hat 1985 party products on the mantel in the spare, tidy living room. You won't find Cohen's plush Grinch lounging on the couch, or a parade of his Dr. Seuss Zoo collectibles on the kitchen counter.

He estimates he's spent up to 60 hours some weeks, before and after work, chasing facts and collectibles. He does a lot through eBay auctions, where he investigates and compares items, corresponds with other buyers and sellers, and, of course, adds to his collection. To pay for his habit, he sometimes sells duplicate items.

Cohen's fascination with Seuss began after he attended a traveling museum exhibit on the art of Theodor Seuss Geisel in the late 1980s. He started wondering about the work Geisel had done outside of children's books; as he dug, he discovered how little accurate information was out there about Geisel's propaganda work for the US Army during World War II, his ads for Esso oil, book covers, and myriad other ventures. He felt compelled to fill in the blanks.

"I got so fed up with things being wrong. Somewhere along the way I took on a sense of responsibility" for delivering factual information about Geisel, he said.

He's a stickler for accurate -- if arcane -- details, a trait he chalks up to his science background. He sifted through contradictory reports about when Geisel created his collectible Narragansett beer tray, finally determining that it was made in the early 1940s. He has both versions of Geisel's poster about the dangers of malaria, produced in 1943 for the US Medical Corps, and was fascinated to find that only one of his two Hanky Birds -- a 1939 promotional sculpture of a big-beaked bird in a kilt created for Hanky Bannister Scotch whisky -- bore the notation "1939 Dr. Seuss."

While Cohen didn't plan to be a Seuss collector, the seeds for his appreciation of the Springfield-born artist were planted long ago. He says his favorite Seuss children's books, "On Beyond Zebra!" and "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," helped propel his sense of curiosity. He also says he was guided by the lessons of tolerance he found in "The Sneetches" and "Horton Hears a Who!"

His expertise hasn't gone unnoticed. In 2002, to mark the unveiling of the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in Springfield, the Springfield Museums held an exhibit showcasing Cohen's collection, with Cohen as guest curator.

With his book complete, Cohen is now considering another Seuss project: a museum, where he could share his knowledge of Geisel's history and prolific work. Meanwhile, he is always adding to his holdings, sometimes finding items in unexpected places -- as he did a couple of weeks ago when he stopped into a local video store.

"The salesperson pointed to me and said, `You're the Seuss guy! Wait a minute!" Cohen relates. "The next thing I knew, I was going home with a button and a candy display box, both of which promoted the `Cat In the Hat' movie."