<P> The Grinch is a bitter, grouchy, cave - dwelling creature with a heart "two sizes too small" who is living as a hermit on the snowy Mount Crumpit, a steep high mountain just north of the town of Whoville, home of the merry and warm - hearted Whos . His only companion is his unloved, but loyal dog, Max . From his cave, the Grinch can hear the noisy Christmas festivities that take place in Whoville . Continuously annoyed, he decides to devise a wicked scheme by stealing their presents, trees, and food for their Christmas feast . He crudely disguises himself as Santa Claus, and forces Max, disguised as a reindeer, to drag a sleigh down the mountain towards Whoville . Once at Whoville, the Grinch slides down the chimney of one house and steals all of the Whos' Christmas presents, the Christmas tree, and the log for their fire . He is briefly interrupted in his burglary by Cindy Lou, a little Who girl, but concocts a crafty lie to effect his escape from her home . After stealing from one house, he does the same thing to all the other houses in the village of Whoville . </P> <P> After spending all night stealing stuff from the houses of Whoville, the Grinch prepares his journey back to Mount Crumpit, and intends to dump all of the Christmas stuff into the abyss, but Max, utilizing every last of his strength to pull the sleigh upward, causes the sleigh to get stuck on a cliff . As dawn arrives, the Grinch expects the people in Whoville to let out bitter and sorrowful cries, but is confused to hear them singing a joyous Christmas song instead . He puzzles for a moment until it dawns on him that "maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more" than just presents and feasting . The Grinch's shrunken heart suddenly grows three sizes . The reformed and liberated Grinch begins having second thoughts, and returns to the village to give back all of the Whos' Christmas stuff . The Grinch is warmly invited to the Whos' feast, where he has the honor of carving the Roast Beast . </P> <P> The Grinch first appeared in a 32 - line illustrated poem by Dr. Seuss called "The Hoobub and the Grinch," which was originally published in the May 1955 edition of Redbook magazine . Dr. Seuss began work on How the Grinch Stole Christmas! a couple years later, around the beginning of 1957 . He had recently completed The Cat in the Hat and was in the midst of founding Beginner Books with Phyllis and Bennett Cerf and his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel . Helen, who had ongoing medical problems and had suffered a small stroke in April 1957, nevertheless acted as an unofficial editor, as she had with previous Dr. Seuss books . Dr. Seuss wrote the book quickly and was mostly finished with it within a few weeks . Biographers Judith and Neil Morgan wrote, "It was the easiest book of his career to write, except for its conclusion ." According to Dr. Seuss, </P> <P> "I got hung up getting the Grinch out of the mess . I got into a situation where I sounded like a second - rate preacher or some biblical truisim...Finally in desperation...without making any statement whatever, I showed the Grinch and the Whos together at the table, and made a pun of the Grinch carving the' roast beast .'...I had gone through thousands of religious choices, and then after three months it came out like that ." </P>

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