H.A. Rey

Hans Augusto (H.A.) Rey (né Reyersbach; September 16, 1898 – August 26, 1977) was a German-born American illustrator and author known best for the Curious George series of children's picture books that he and his wife Margret Rey created in 1939 (Curious George is not the main character in the book) and 1941 (Curious George is the main character in the book.) to 1966.

Hans Augusto Reyersbach was born in Hamburg, German Empire, on September 16, 1898. Hans and Margret were German Jews. The couple first met in Hamburg at Margret's sister's 16th birthday party. They met again in Brazil, where Hans was working as a salesman of bathtubs, and Margret had gone to escape the rise of Nazism in Germany. They married in 1935 and moved to Paris, France, in August of that year. They lived in Montmartre and fled Paris in June 1940 on bicycles, carrying the Curious George manuscript with them.

He died three weeks before his 79th birthday on August 26, 1977, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. While in Paris, Hans' animal drawings came to the attention of a French publisher, who commissioned him to write a children's book. The result of Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys is little remembered. Still, one of its characters, an adorably impish monkey named Curious George, was such a success that the couple considered writing a book focused entirely on him. 

The outbreak of World War II interrupted their work. Being Jews, the Reys decided to flee Paris before the Nazis invaded the city. Hans assembled two bicycles, and they left the city 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 took them to Bayonne, France, where they were issued life-saving visas signed by Portuguese Vice-Consul Manuel Vieira Braga (following instructions from Aristides de Sousa Mendes) on June 20, 1940. They crossed the Spanish border, where they bought train tickets to Lisbon. From there, they returned to Brazil, where they had met five years earlier, but this time they continued on to New York. The Reys escaped Europe carrying the manuscript to the first Curious George book, which was published in New York by Houghton Mifflin in 1941. 

Hans and Margret originally planned to use watercolor illustrations. Still, since they were responsible for the color separation, he changed these to the cartoon-like images that continue to be featured in each of the books. (A collector's edition with the original watercolors has since been released.)

Curious George was an instant success, and the Reys were commissioned to write more adventures of the mischievous monkey and his friend, the Man in the Yellow Hat. They wrote seven stories in all, with Hans mainly doing the illustrations and Margret working mostly on the stories. However, they both admitted to sharing the work and cooperating fully in every stage of development. At first, however, covers omitted Margret's name. In later editions, this was changed, and Margret now receives full credit for her role in developing the stories. Curious George Takes a Job was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1960.

The Reys relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1963, in a house near Harvard Square, and lived there until Hans's death in 1977. In the 1990s, the Reys' friends founded a children's bookstore, Curious George & Friends (formerly Curious George Goes to Wordsworth), which operated in Harvard Square until 2011.[9] A new Curious George-themed store opened in 2012, The World's Only Curious George Store, which in 2019 moved to Central Square.