Shel Silverstein, whose goofy, gross and macabre yet always enchanting poetry for children sold more than 14 million books, was found dead Monday morning at his home in Key West, Fla. He was 67.
Neither the time nor cause of death had been determined Monday afternoon, said Shel Vidibor, his friend and lawyer.While Silverstein's talents led him into a diverse series of careers as a cartoonist, playwright, singer and song writer, it was his children's verses that are best known and often compared with masters of the form like Dr. Seuss and A.A. Milne.
His collections of children's poetry, "Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein" (Harper, 1974) and "A Light in the Attic" (Harper 1981), both enjoyed long runs on the best-seller lists.
Silverstein was also the author of the children's classic "The Giving Tree" (Harper, 1964).
In addition to his writings for children, he contributed cartoons to Playboy magazine for many years and wrote nine plays for adults. In 1988, when several of those plays were packaged as "Wild Life" and were produced at the Vanguard Theater in Manhattan, Frank Rich, in his review in The New York Times, suggested that writing plays "may eventually prove his most fruitful career to date."
Silverstein's career as a children's author began in 1963 with the publication of "Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back" (Harper).
This yarn about a lion who acquired a hunter's gun and practiced until he became a good enough shot to join the circus was only a moderate success. It was not until publication of "The Giving Tree" that Silverstein developed a mass following.