20 Facts About Phyllis Pearsall

Phyllis Isobella Pearsall MBE was a British painter and writer who founded the Geographers' A-Z Map Company, for which she is regarded as one of the most successful business people of the twentieth century.

Phyllis Pearsall has erroneously been credited with creating London's first popular indexed street map.

Phyllis Pearsall was born Phyllis Isobella Gross in East Dulwich, London on 25 September 1906.

Phyllis Pearsall's father, Alexander Gross, was a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant and her mother, Isabella Crowly, an Irish-Italian Roman Catholic suffragette, whose parents disapproved of the match.

Phyllis Pearsall grew up with her older brother, the artist Anthony Gross, in London and travelled all over Europe from an early age.

Phyllis Pearsall's father founded the cartographic company Geographia Ltd, which produced, among others, street maps of most British towns and although successful, eventually went bankrupt; Gross re-launched the company in the United States as the Geographia Map Company a few years later.

Phyllis Pearsall's parents had a very tense marriage which soon dissolved.

Phyllis Pearsall's mother remarried but died some years later in an asylum.

Phyllis Pearsall then became an English tutor in France, at a small school in Fecamp, Normandy.

Phyllis Pearsall started working as a shop assistant in a big department store, selling gloves.

Phyllis Pearsall married Richard Pearsall, an artist friend of her brother.

Phyllis Pearsall left him in Venice while he was asleep, without telling him anything.

Phyllis Pearsall claimed that the work involved walking 3,000 miles to check the names of the 23,000 streets of London, waking up at 5am every day, and not going to bed until after an 18-hour working day.

The first Phyllis Pearsall A-Z claimed on its front cover to include "9,000 more [streets] than any similar atlas index", but in fact it had almost the same number of streets as the Bartholomew's version.

Phyllis Pearsall tried Hatchards in Piccadilly, Selfridges, where they would not see her without an appointment, and Foyles.

Compact and convenient maps of cities have a history which goes back centuries, but Phyllis Pearsall's A to Z map was a marketing success in its clean, simple and efficient design and cover.

Phyllis Pearsall designed the type for a few children's encyclopaedias and some other titles, though her slant was always toward publishing.

Phyllis Pearsall wrote about her early days in From Bedsitter to Household Name, published by her own company.

Phyllis Pearsall was awarded an MBE in The Queen's Birthday Honours of 1986.

Phyllis Pearsall was involved with the company she founded, as well as painting prolifically, until her death.