Jeff Brown, 77, a magazine editor and short-story writer who created Flat Stanley, the two-dimensional hero of an enduring series of children’s books, has died in Manhattan.
Mr. Brown died Dec. 3 of a heart attack while walking near his home, his family said.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Brown had worked in Hollywood and as an editor and writer in New York before creating Flat Stanley, a hero whose adventures, with illustrations by Tomi Ungerer, were first published in 1964.
Flat Stanley became the star of a series of perpetually popular books. The latest, “Stanley, Flat Again!,” was published this year by HarperCollins Children’s Books. All together, Stanley’s tales have sold nearly a million copies in the United States, HarperCollins said. The character’s life extended further, as schoolchildren mailed cutouts of him to their friends.
The idea for Stanley came to Mr. Brown one night at bedtime as his sons J.C. and Tony were stalling for time. They wondered what would happen if the bulletin board on the wall were to fall on J.C., and Mr. Brown said he would most likely wake up flat. That led to speculation about what such a life might be like.
