Distracting Dissertations

The lack of posts has partly been due to the dissertation needing to be written.

It is now in (Hoorah!) and already the hours of fretting and reading and worrying are starting to fade.

I really enjoyed the research and all that information one crams into the brain now has no use...I had wondered if a pub quiz would be the answer but it would have to be very specific and how many quizzes are there on the representation of bears in children's literature? Non...more's the pity!

The following images are some of the many that did not make it into the essay but I have grown fond of for one reason or another.

An Ainu carving.

Johnny Crow's Garden 1903, Leslie L. Brooke.
I grew to love his work while using his book The Story of The Three Bears
as a case study.

I could not find out much about this picture, or the illustrator.  Possibly by an Hispanic illustrator
in the 1960s. There was a shortage of honey and skirt material at this time, it seems. 

The beautiful and ancient. One of the bears, along with many
other creatures
found in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in France,
circa 30,000 BC.

A study in relaxation by Feodor Rojankovsky.

A very stylised illustration by Kay Nielsen 1930.
 Favouring the original Southey tale by showing an elderly woman,
not a young girl. 

The wonderful Oliver Jeffers and his
'The Great Paper Caper' 2008
the stick legs bother me though.

The (now) little known Roosevelt Bears and Their
Travels and Adventures by Seymour Eaton,
illustrated by V. Floyd Campbell. 1905.

The Three Bears by Herbert Cole 1906.
I really like the clear lines and strong composition,
but the bears do not look very happy at their accessory choices.

These bears, however, look very real and very angry.
The Story of The Three Bears by Henry Justice Ford, 1892.