Dorothy Kunhardt (née Meserve; September 29, 1901 – December 23, 1979) was an American children's-book author, best known for the baby book Pat the Bunny.

[2] She initially wrote it for her youngest child, Edith Kunhardt Davis.

[3] Other works include Twenty Days, an account of Lincoln's assassination and the twenty days that followed, which she wrote with her son, Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr.; Tiny Animal Stories; The Telephone Book; Lucky Mrs. Ticklefeather; Brave Mr. Buckingham; Junket is Nice (1933); Wise Old Aard-Vark (1936); and Now Open the Box.

[citation needed] A daughter of historian Frederick Hill Meserve,[4] she was born in New York City and graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1923.

[7][8] Their home in Morristown, New Jersey housed a collection of items related to the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln.