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13 Oct 2008
Paddington Bear's 50th Birthday





Paddington Bear is a fictional character in children's literature. He first appeared on 13 October 1958 in the children's book A Bear Called Paddington and has been featured in more than twenty books written by British author Michael Bond and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum and other artists.

The friendly bear from "darkest Peru"—with his old hat, battered suitcase, duffel coat and love of marmalade—has become a classic character from British children's literature. An anthropomorphised bear, Paddington is always polite – addressing people as "Mr", "Mrs" and "Miss", rarely by first names – and kindhearted, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval. He has an endless capacity for innocently getting into trouble, but he is known to "try so hard to get things right." He was discovered in London Paddington station, by the [human] Brown family who adopted him, and thus he gives his full name as "Paddington Brown" [his original Peruvian name being too hard for them to pronounce].

As of June 2016, the Paddington Bear franchise was owned by Vivendi's StudioCanal. Bond, however, continued to own the publishing rights to his series, which was licensed to HarperCollins in April 2017.

Paddington books have been translated into 30 languages across 70 titles and have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. A much loved fictional character in the UK, a Paddington Bear soft toy was chosen by British tunnelers as the first item to pass through to their French counterparts when the two sides of the Channel Tunnel were linked in 1994. Paddington Bear has been adapted for television, films and appeared in commercials. The critically acclaimed and commercially successful films Paddington [2014] and Paddington 2 [2017] were both nominated for the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film.



Statue of Paddington Bear at Paddington Station
Sculptor - Marcus Cornish