Rupert Bear The Adventure series. Fifty books published between 1948 and 1963

Rupert bear is one of the most enduring and well-loved children’s characters in British fiction. He was The Daily Express’s response to the highly successful children’s picture strip stories in other newspapers. Herbert Tourtel a senior executive at The Daily Express wrote the stories and his wife Mary provided the illustrations. Little Lost Bear ran for 36 days starting on the 8th November, 1920. The stories appeared in book form the following year and the first Rupert annual was published in 1936.
Herbert Tourtel died in 1931, but Mary continued to write and illustrate the stories herself until failing eyesight forced her to retire in 1935. Alfred Bestall was her natural successor. He had already published cartoons in other magazines as well as drawing the covers for Schoolgirl’s Own Annuals.
A new series of books began in 1948 and ran for 50 issues these were the Rupert Adventure Series with Rupert and Snuffy being the first. Numerous well known illustrators contributed artwork, including Enid Ash, Alex Cubie and Alfred Bestall. Later publications are the most difficult to find and are often the most expensive.
I was lucky enough to purchase a complete set, and although I no longer have them all I did manage to photograph them. I hope this proves useful for anyone wishing to collect the set.
Each unpaginated, slim booklet comes with colour illustrations in the same format as the annuals. All but three contain two Rupert stories some written specifically for the series and some reproduced from older annuals.
Information sourced from 'the new Rupert index' by W.O.G Lofts and D. J. Adley revised and updated by John Beck.

If you would like to find out more about Rupert visit the Followers of Rupert Bear