You'd think that a wildly imaginative children's author and illustrator famed for the use of nonsensical words like "Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz" would have trouble fitting a story into the strict confines of a pre-approved vocabulary list. Yet it was precisely that limitation that inspired Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, to deliver two of his best-known works.

Some chickens lay green eggs.

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All eggs start out white, but some get coated in other pigments as the egg travels through the hen’s oviduct. Green eggs are the result of both brown and blue pigments being deposited. Several breeds of chickens can produce green eggs, including the aptly named Olive Eggers.

In the mid-1950s, a publishing executive named William Spaulding, dismayed by the uninspiring material being foisted on young readers, challenged Seuss to write "a story that first graders can't put down," using a list of around 300 words (meant to help children learn how to read). The assignment flummoxed Seuss for a spell, until he zeroed in on two words that rhymed. Nine months later, he finished the groundbreaking The Cat in the Hat (1957), his tale of a havoc-wreaking feline — composed of only 236 distinct words.

Another publisher, named Bennett Cerf, then upped the ante by asking Seuss to write a book using only 50 different words, and bet the author $50 that it couldn't be done. Seuss again wrung his hands over the project, plastering his wall with flowchart maps to work his way through the narrative. But once again he pulled it off, leaving Cerf shaking his head in amazement upon hearing the story of the persistent Sam-I-Am and the many ways to eat a particular dish. And while the publisher allegedly never paid up, things worked out just fine from a monetary standpoint for Seuss, as Green Eggs and Ham (1960) became the top-selling title of his long, distinguished career.

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Video games aren’t often associated with literary figures, but The Legend of Zelda has always been unique. Take, for instance, the fact that its title character was named after writer, artist, and Jazz Age icon Zelda Fitzgerald, whose marriage to The Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald generated nearly as many headlines as his professional output. Zelda, who’s been described as the first flapper of the Roaring '20s (and the inspiration for Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan), was chosen because a Nintendo PR rep suggested that the eponymous princess should be “a timeless beauty with classic appeal” and that Zelda Fitzgerald was one such “eternal beauty.” 

Zelda’s protagonist was inspired by Peter Pan.

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Despite being its namesake, Princess Zelda isn’t the character you play as in these games — that would be Link, whose green attire and pointy hat were inspired by Peter Pan. Shigeru Miyamoto wanted its hero to be instantly recognizable, and the boy who never grew up fit the bill.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the game’s creator, agreed: “She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name,” he has said. The name chain didn’t end there; actor Robin Williams was such a fan of the series that he named his daughter after the Princess of Hyrule. As for Zelda F. herself, she was — rather fittingly — named for the fictional heroine of a 19th-century novel.

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In 1928, Walt Disney’s Hollywood studio was on the brink of bankruptcy, plagued with debts and failed contracts. Miraculously, it took just one mouse to turn things around. Disney’s first iteration of its most recognizable animated character is often referred to as Steamboat Willie thanks to his role in a short movie of the same name; today, of course, everyone knows his name is Mickey Mouse. In 2024, the copyright protection over his first adventure will expire, sailing the character into the waters of the public domain. (Later versions of Mickey will remain protected until their own copyrights expire.)

A Dutch company once tried to copyright its cheese.

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In 2018, two feuding Dutch cheese producers asked EU courts to determine if cheese — in this case an herb-veggie spread — could be copyrighted. The European Court of Justice decided that tastes cannot be copyright protected, in part because they vary from person to person.

Steamboat Willie hit screens on November 18, 1928, making entertainment history as the first cartoon to use fully synchronized sound (most films at that time, animated and otherwise, were silent). Walt Disney, burned from previous fights over intellectual property, copyrighted the character at a time when U.S. copyright law guaranteed protection for a total of 56 years. But around the time of the animation’s original expiration date, the Walt Disney Company lobbied for extended coverage, retaining control for decades longer thanks to the Copyright Act of 1976 and 1998’s Copyright Term Extension Act (often referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act). 

Dissolving Disney’s copyright over the Steamboat Willie star could lead to choppy waters for artists, brands, and others who want to use the character. That’s because Disney may retain some rights to its earliest mouse thanks to trademarks (which, unlike copyrights, can last in perpetuity), potentially sparking conflicts over fair use. However, it could also spark a wave of creative remixes that rejuvenate the 95-year-old character — a move public domain advocates say helps restore forgotten works and build upon cultural heritage.

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In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe temporarily departed from the usual brevity of his short stories and completed his first novel — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It was also his last novel. Now considered the beginnings of the science fiction and detective genres, Poe’s works are best known for macabre plots that consistently feature the supernatural, and Arthur Gordon Pym is no different. Written five years before Poe published some of his most popular works — including "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Tell-Tale Heart" — Poe’s only novel was set at sea, recounting the adventures of a New Englander named Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away on a ship. Upon leaving land, Pym suffers a series of misadventures, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism. 

Edgar Allan Poe once tried to become a professional cryptographer.

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Poe loved ciphers, and embedded them in stories such as “The Gold-Bug.” At one point, the author — who collected and solved reader-submitted puzzles while working for a newspaper — even contacted the federal government about a code-cracking job, though there were no vacancies.

Despite the fact that Poe had experienced some previous literary success, his novel was received harshly. That was in part because of the political quagmire of American slavery; at the time the novel was published, the abolition movement was gaining momentum, and scenes in Arthur Gordon Pym seemed to reflect then-bubbling social tensions. Many literary critics interpreted the story and its symbols, including a clash between white sailors and Black islanders, as a political statement about the evils of slavery; others dismissed Poe’s novel for its depictions of violence. Some readers, believing the book was based on a true story, were upset to find it was fiction, and declared it a hoax. Given its poor reception, Poe returned to the short story format and wrote off his own novel, calling it a “very silly book.” 

But not everyone considered Poe’s book a flop. Literary historians believe it was likely read by author Herman Melville, and may have served as inspiration for Melville’s book Moby-Dick (published in 1851). Over time, reviews of Arthur Gordon Pym softened, and in 1897, author Jules Vern wrote a two-volume sequel called An Antarctic Mystery, continuing on with Poe’s supernatural story nearly 60 years after it first went to press.

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