Felix Salten (Author) Salten was born Siegmund Salzmann on 6 September 1869 in Pest, Austria-Hungary. His best remembered work is Bambi (1923). A translation in English was published by Simon & Schuster in 1928, and became a great success. In 1933, he sold the film rights to the American director Sidney Franklin for only $1,000, and Franklin later transferred the rights to the Walt Disney Studios, which formed the basis of the animated film Bambi (1942). Life in Austria became perilous for Jews during the 1930s. In Germany, Adolf Hitler had Salten's books banned in 1936. Felix Salten died on 8 October 1945, at the age of 76. Kurt Wiese (Illustrator) KURT WIESE (1887-1974) was a German-born book illustrator, who wrote and illustrated twenty children's books and illustrated another three hundred for other authors.

He moved to the United States in 1927, and his first big success was with the illustrations for the English translation of Felix Salten's Bambi .