Babar first appeared in 1931 in the French children's book Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff.
The idea for Babar was hers, but after her husband illustrated it, she had her name taken off the author page. We learn about this from her New York Times obituary:
Cécile de Brunhoff, whose husband turned a bedtime tale she told their children into the world-famous stories about Babar the Elephant, died ....in Paris. .....[The] first tale of Babar, family members said, materialized one night in 1930 when Mrs. de Brunhoff's son Mathieu complained of feeling ill. To soothe him, she told him and his brother Laurent a story about a young orphaned elephant who sets out to visit a city that is clearly Paris. He steals some money and goes on a shopping spree before being persuaded by his cousins to return to the jungle.
This next picture of Babar is from a French book published in 1994.
After their father died, one of the children who heard the original Babar story continued to write and illustrate Babar's adventures.
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