Paddington Marches On

By Michael Bond

First edition, first impression: London: Collins, 1964.

Original red cloth, the spine lettered in silver. With line drawings in the text by Peggy Fortnum, who also illustrated the dust jacket: her drawing of Paddington with hat and suitcase on a turquoise ground to the upper panel, the lower panel advertising the five earlier Paddington books, and the rear flap carrying a quotation for each. The jacket unclipped and priced 9s. 6d. net on the front flap.

A very good copy, the boards square and the silver lettering bright. Some spotting to the front and rear endpapers and to the top edge and fore-edge of the text block, the contents otherwise clean throughout. A previous retailer’s ticket to the lower corner of the rear pastedown; the spine ends a touch pushed.

The original and unclipped dust jacket very good: a few chips to the edges, and a few closed tears discreetly repaired with tape to the underside with some foxing; a few abraded areas to the bottom corner of the upper panel.

The sixth of the Paddington books, following "A Bear Called Paddington" (1958), "More About Paddington" (1959), "Paddington Helps Out" (1960), "Paddington Abroad" (1961) and "Paddington at Large" (1962), the five titles advertised on the lower panel of this jacket. Its seven stories take Paddington through frozen pipes in Mr Curry’s bathroom, the sweeping of a chimney, the waxworks at Madame Tussauds and a school cricket match, and close with a farewell party at which he learns that he is to go back to Peru for his Aunt Lucy’s hundredth birthday; the sequel, "Paddington at Work" (1966), opens with his voyage back to England. Bond had bought a teddy bear left on a shelf in a London shop on Christmas Eve 1956 as a present for his wife, and named the character for the station near which they were then living. Peggy Fortnum illustrated the series from its first volume.