First US edition of the first book about the bear who cheerfully notes, "things are always happening to me. I'm that sort of bear."
Very good plus in very good jacket.
Price: $500.00
"It's an extraordinary level of success for a children's book character who doesn't play quidditch – one matched only perhaps by that other endearingly bumbling bear, Pooh." – Michelle Pauli
In an interview with THE GUARDIAN, Bond described how his own experience during World War II of observing evacuee children at the train station shaped his little bear: "They all had a label round their neck with their name and address on and a little case or package containing all their treasured possessions. So Paddington, in a sense, was a refugee." The neighborhood surrounding Paddington station was indeed known for its thriving immigrant population, and the sprightly and earnest little bear learns to feel at home in London, where he and his friends can celebrate their differences alongside their similarities. The immigrant bear Paddington is now a British icon, with a bronze statue in Paddington Station and his own Royal Mail stamps.
Read more: Pauli, interview with Michael Bond, The Guardian, 28 November 2014.
First printing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, (1960). 8'' x 5.25''. Original yellow pictorial cloth stamped in blue and red. In original unclipped ($2.50) color pictorial dust jacket dust jacket. Illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. 128 pages. Jacket with toning to spine, some soil and rubbing, a few short closed tears. Book with slight lean, a hair of cracking to front joint (entirely firm), minimal soil. Bright.
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