The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear: being the demibiography of a seagoing bear ... and excerpts from the 'Encyclopedia of the marvels, life forms and other phenomena of Zamonia and the its environs,' by Professor Abdulla Nightingale

London: Vintage, 2001. Trade Paperback. Near Fine. Text unmarked. Spine straight and tight with a light crease. Covers clean and bright with light reading wear. Not from a library. 704 pages.

Captain Bluebear is a bear with blue fur, a creature as unique as the fantastic adventures he undergoes. Unlike cats, which have only nine lives, bluebears have twenty-seven. This is fortunate, because our hero is forever avoiding disaster by a paw's breadth. In this remarkable book, Captain Bluebear tells the story of his first thirteen-and-a-half lives spent on the mysterious continent of Zamonia, where intelligence is an infectious disease and water flows uphill, where headless giants roam deserts made of sugar, and where only Captain Bluebear's courage and ingenuity enable him to escape the dangers that lie in wait for him around every corner. In company with our indomitable hero, we enter a realm of the imagination that combines the fantasy of The Lord of the Rings and The Neverending Story with the humour of Baron Munchausen, and where anything can exist except boredom. It's a land of imaginative lunacy and supreme adventure, wicked satire and epic fantasy, all mixed together and turned on its head.