Reading lists and articles featuring Michael Bond

Michael Bond biography

Michael Bond was an English author best known for creating Paddington Bear. He was born in Newbury, Berkshire, in 1926. Bond began writing during his military service in Cairo in 1945, selling his first short story to London Opinion. After returning to England, he worked as a BBC television cameraman while continuing to write fiction in his spare time.

In 1958, Bond published A Bear Called Paddington, which introduced readers to a polite bear from Peru found at Paddington Station by the Brown family. The book was illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. The Paddington series grew to include numerous titles and has been translated into more than 40 languages, selling over 35 million copies worldwide. The final Paddington book, Paddington at St. Paul’s, was published posthumously in 2018.

Bond also wrote about Olga da Polga, a guinea pig character, and authored a series of adult mysteries featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1997 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015 for services to literature. Michael Bond died in 2017 at the age of 91. A bronze statue of Paddington Bear stands at London’s Paddington Station in his honor.