Description
Poor dust jacket has several large chips to edges on front, back and spine. Illustrated with teddy bears. A mylar dust jacket has been added. The Very Good+ binding is blue cloth over boards, gilt design on front, gilt lettering on spine. Very slight corner bumping. Toning to end papers. Color frontispiece and black and white illustrations within. Tiny soil spots to page edges. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The book measures 10.0″ tall x 7.6″” wide.
First Edition Thus
Printed in Great Britain
About the book (from the dust jacket)
That Margaret Hutchings has written a delightful book nearly goes without saying, for that is just what her many faithful readers confidently expect. But it may be asked, “Is there scope in whole big book?” Teddy Bears for a The answer to this is an emphatic Yes. Quite a folklore has already grown up about this most loved of toys, Here we learn something of its origin; the Roosevelt family has kindly contributed authoritative information, and Mr. Archibald Roosevelt, son of the great President Theodore, has written the book’s foreword. There is a “gossip about some famous bears, column” Pooh, Rupert, John Betjeman’s Archibald, Donald Campbell’s Mr. Woppit, and others. There all sorts of odd are little snippets of information, and advice on how to run a Teddy Bear’s Hospital at a bazaar. No self-respecting book comes out nowadays without its statistical survey adorned with percentages, and Margaret Hutchings has an impressive one, revealing many hitherto undisclosed facts about Teddy Bear ownership.
Then there are the patterns, for making bears in immense variety. Soft little cuddly bears for the very young; elegant, sophisticated bears for a teenager’s divan; big bears with a growl; tiny, tiny bears that can go undetected in a five-year-old’s pocket on that first day at school; glove puppet bears; a panda and a koala, for to the child these are bears; the Three Bears and a little Goldilocks (plus some information about the origin of her story, and a fine re-telling of it by Mr. Stanley Unwin); some very easy bears that a child can make for itself. All have immense character, and all-as invariably with this author-are most carefully described so that the worker can follow every step in their construction.
About the author/illustrator (from the dust jacket)
Born and has lived all her life in Essex. Father died when she was very young; brought up by mother and grandmother in a house where everything was homemade, even the sheets and cough mixture! Educated at Endsleigh House School, Colchester. Specially liked all handicraft subjects. Married young and has three sons; lives in and runs herself an attractive old Manor House in the country. Local interests: school manager and W.I.
Had always felt that there was something she could do really well if only she could find out what it was: through the W.I., suddenly discovered that it was toy making. Took her exams to become an instructor, demonstrator and judge, and has given talks to meetings, conferences etc all over the country. The demand for her talks, in fact, has become so great in recent years that she has now, regretfully, to refuse a large proportion of invitations; otherwise she feels, she would have no time left for her home and family. Has also written, designed and judged for many newspapers and periodicals. Has appeared several times on TV with her toys and won at various times most of the major awards for toy making.
Loves travel, goes abroad as often as she can-a recent trip was to Iceland-and always comes back with a harvest of new ideas which eventually find their way into her books.
