Margret Rey

Margret Elizabeth Rey (May 10, 1906 – December 21, 1996), born Margarete Elisabeth Waldstein, was (with her husband H. A. Rey), the co-author and illustrator of children's books, the most famous of which are the Curious George series.

Margarete Waldstein was born in Hamburg in 1906; her father was a member of the Reichstag. She studied art at Bauhaus in Dessau, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and the University of Munich, and afterwards worked in advertising. In 1935, she left Germany for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to escape Nazism. While there, she met her future husband Hans (who was a salesman and also from Hamburg). They married in 1935 and moved to Paris, France, in 1936. [2]

While in Paris, Hans's animal drawings came to the attention of French publisher, who commissioned him to write a children's book. The result, Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys, is little remembered today, but one of its characters, an adorably impish monkey named Curious George, was such a success that the couple considered writing a book just about him. Their work was interrupted with the outbreak of World War II. As Jews, the Reys decided to flee Paris before the Nazis seized the city. Hans built two bicycles, and they fled Paris just a few hours before it fell. Among the meager possessions they brought with them was the illustrated manuscript of Curious George.

The Reys' odyssey brought them to the Spanish border, where they bought train tickets to Lisbon. From there they returned to Brazil, where they ha…