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|  | | Kay Thompson
A nightclub musician with a one-of-a-kind personality, Kay Thompson turned her comical six-year-old alter ego Eloise into a children's classic featuring verselike prose and Hilary Knight's inimitable illustrations. Eloise's life at New York's Plaza Hotel is an enviable, whimsical one that readers cawn't, cawn't cawn't forget. As Rex Reed wrote in 1972, "If you don't know who Kay Thompson is, please turn the page. You just flunked pizazz."
 Read the biography
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Fact File
| Name:
Kay Thompson
Date of Birth:
November 9, 1909
Place of Birth:
St. Louis, Missouri
Date of Death:
July 2, 1998
| | Place of Death:
New York, New York
Education:
Washington University
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The Best Book to Read First
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Our Price:
$
19.95
| | Eloise: The Absolutely Essential Edition
by
Kay Thompson, Hilary Knight (Illustrator)
Originally published in 1955, the volume introducing Thompson's beloved heroine was given a brand new edition in 1999 with biographical notes and scrapbook of previously unpublished material from Hilary Knight's collection.
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Kay and Hilary
| Illustrator Hilary Knight's neighbor D. D. Dixon, a fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, introduced him to Thompson in 1954. Knight later sent a Christmas card to Thompson with his first conception of Eloise. Thompson said, "[The card was] an interesting, beautifully executed and highly stylized picture of an angel and Santa Claus, streaking through the sky on a Christmas tree. On the end of the tree, grinning a lovely grin, her wild hair standing on end, was Eloise. It was immediate recognition on my part. There she was. In person."
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