[4] Professor Bull's Umbrella was written by William Lipkind,[2] who won the Caldecott Medal for Finders Keepers a few years prior to its publication.

[5] Lipkind had previously teamed up with Nicholas Mordvinoff for many of his works;[5] for Umbrella, he collaborated with Georges Schreiber (1904–1977), an American immigrant from Belgium.

[7] Professor Bull's Umbrella was published in September 1954[1] by the Viking Press[5] to positive reviews,[2][4][8] and was a Junior Literary Guild selection for Grades 2 and 3.

[9] Schreiber's illustrations were noted for their memorability and "umbrella's-eye view" perspective,[3] while Marjorie Fischer of The New York Times Book Review commented on Philip the umbrella's human-like sentience.

[8] In later years, Patrick Groff would take note of the slapstick in Umbrella, but otherwise found it one of Lipkind's stories that "turn and twist with melodramatic, even haphazard, effects, which make for loose-jointed and irregular structures, hard to follow — and to believe.