Louise Seaman Bechtel (June 29, 1894 – April 12, 1985) was an American editor, critic, author, and teacher of young children.
She inherited Macmillan's standard children's titles including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Kingsley's Water Babies, and Mary Louisa Molesworth's The Cuckoo Clock.
Bechtel resigned from Macmillan Company in 1934 due to a broken hip from a horseback riding accident injury sustained in 1933 and internal pressures.
[5] Three of the books she published, The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly in 1929, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field in 1930, and The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth in 1931, were awarded the Newbery Medal.
Later donated to Vassar College and the University of Florida in Gainesville), it exceeded 3,500 volumes, among them rare folk tales, Asian and African legends, Greek mythology, Aesop's fables, tales from Shakespeare, and early twentieth century children's book illustrators such as Arthur Rackham, Kate Greenaway, and Boris Artzybasheff.