The Bear That Wasn't.  

New York, E.P. Dutton & Co., 1946.  [Publication date: February].  Also published in a softcover limited edition of 500 copies by Edgar Steiner & Co., Inc. 

 

 

 

 

The story of a bear who awakens from his winter's hibernation to discover that "lots of men [had] built a great, big, huge, factory, right OVER the TOP" of his cave, and of his ensuing identity crisis.  Told repeatedly by one and all that he's not a bear at all, but "a silly man who wears a fur coat and needs a shave," he finally comes to believe it himself. 

 

Widely reviewed and widely acclaimed by the likes of the New York Times and the Saturday Review of Literature (which featured the author and his Bear on the cover of their 16 February 1946 issue), Tashlin's first book is his most famous and enduring literary work.  It is also exceedingly personal: at 6 feet 4 inches tall and 240 pounds, Tashlin was often described as "bearlike," and he once likened the Bear to "me at Disney" (he was reportedly at work on the book as early as 1941).  Over the years, the book has been translated into many languages, adapted for records (by Tashlin himself), radio (including the BBC) and children's theatre, and even inspired a Danish "rewrite" (published in the U.S. in 1977 as The Bear Who Wanted to Be a Bear -- "from an idea by Frank Tashlin, adapted by Jörg Steiner, illustrated by Jörg Müller").  The Bear That Wasn't is also the only Tashlin book in print today in the United States, in a Dover paperback edition first issued in 1962. 

 

For years, Tashlin resisted all overtures to adapt the book into a film; as he told Mike Barrier, "...everyone wanted to make an animated cartoon.  I heard from studios in Europe -- all over.  And it was kind of precious and special to me, and I said no."  When he finally relented, by permitting his old Warners colleague Chuck Jones to film the book in 1967, he ended up regretting the decision.  (See cartoon filmography.) 

 

The original dedication of the book reads "To Patricia Anne [Tashlin's daughter, seven years old at the time of publication], the little girl that is"; this was retained for the first Dover reprint, but in a subsequent edition was changed to "For my son Christopher Kerry." 

 

Search for copies of this book on ABE (The Advanced Book Exchange).