Ellen Raskin lived in many worlds: in the world of books, in the world of dreams, and in New York City, where she wrote and illustrated in an 1820 haunted house. Ellen Raskin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up during the Great Depression. She was the author of several other novels, including the Newbery Medal-winning The Westing Game, the Newbery Honor-winning Figgs & Phantoms , The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), and The Tattooed Potato and other clues. She also wrote and illustrated many picture books and was an accomplished graphic artist. She designed dust jackets for dozens of books, including the first edition of Madeline L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time . Ms. Raskin died at the age of fifty-six on August 8, 1984, in New York City. Ellen Raskin made the illustrations in this book.

She also designed this book with the patient assistance of Riki Levinson and Susan Shapiro (who is not responsible for Truman Figg's misspellings). The typefaces were chosen to reflect the content of the words, to point up the contrast of old books with vaudeville. The text was set in Janson, a beautiful seventeenth-century old-style face. The display type is the theatrical Playbill. Truman's signes are composed of Chisel, Playbill, and News Gothic. The ampersand is Garamond. This sign represents the word "and" and is derived from the latin et , which also means "and.".