A . A . Milne Alan Alexander Milne ( 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956 ) was an English author , best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie - the - Pooh and for various children ' s poems . Milne was a noted writer , primarily as a playwright , before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work . Biography . A . A . Milne was born in Hampstead , London to parents Vince Milne , who was Scottish , and Sarah Marie Milne ( née Heginbotham ) and grew up at Henley House School , 6 / 7 Mortimer Road ( now Crescent ) , Kilburn , a small public school run by his father . One of his teachers was H . G . Wells , who taught there in 1889 – 90 . Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College , Cambridge , where he studied on a mathematics scholarship . While there , he edited and wrote for " Granta " , a student magazine . He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM . Milne ' s work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine " Punch " , where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor . Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later , after a debilitating illness , the Royal Corps of Signals . He was recruited into Military Intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI 7b between 1916 and 1918 . He was discharged on 14 February 1919 , and settled in Mallord Street , Chelsea . After the war , he wrote a denunciation of war titled " Peace with Honour " ( 1934 ) , which he retracted somewhat with 1940 ' s " War with Honour " . During World War II , Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English writer P . G . Wodehouse , who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year . Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment , which were broadcast from Berlin . Although the light - hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans , Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country ' s enemy . Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend ( e . g . in The Mating Season ) by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories , and claiming that Milne " was probably jealous of all other writers . . . But I loved his stuff . " Milne married Dorothy " Daphne " de Sélincourt in 1913 , and their only son , Christopher Robin Milne , was born in 1920 . In 1925 , A . A . Milne bought a country home , Cotchford Farm , in Hartfield , East Sussex . During World War II , A . A . Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row , insisting on being plain ' Mr . Milne ' to the members of his platoon . He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid , and by August 1953 " he seemed very old and disenchanted " . Milne died in January 1956 , aged 74 . Literary career . 1903 to 1925 . After graduating from Cambridge in 1903 , A . A . Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to " Punch " , joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor . During this period he published 18 plays and 3 novels , including the murder mystery " The Red House Mystery " ( 1922 ) . His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children ' s poems " When We Were Very Young " , which were illustrated by " Punch " staff cartoonist E . H . Shepard . A collection of short stories for children " Gallery of Children " , and other stories that became part of the Winnie - the - Pooh books , were first published in 1925 . Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry , writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films ( founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel ) . These were " The Bump " , starring Aubrey Smith ; " Twice Two " ; " Five Pound Reward " ; and " Bookworms " Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute . Milne had met Howard when the actor starred in Milne ’ s play " Mr Pim Passes By " in London . Looking back on this period ( in 1926 ) , Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story , he was told that what the country wanted from a " " Punch " humorist " was a humorous story ; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes , his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story ; and after another two years , he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children ' s books . He concluded that " the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it ; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory " con amore " as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others . " 1926 to 1928 . Milne is most famous for his two " Pooh " books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son , Christopher Robin Milne , and various characters inspired by his son ' s stuffed animals , most notably the bear named Winnie - the - Pooh . Christopher Robin Milne ' s stuffed bear , originally named " Edward " , was renamed " Winnie - the - Pooh " after a Canadian black bear named Winnie ( after Winnipeg ) , which was used as a military mascot in World War I , and left to London Zoo during the war . " The pooh " comes from a swan called " Pooh " . E . H . Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books , using his own son ' s teddy , Growler ( " a magnificent bear " ) , as the model . The rest of Christopher Robin Milne ' s toys , Piglet , Eeyore , Kanga , Roo and Tigger , were incorporated into A . A . Milne ' s stories , two more characters - Rabbit and Owl - were created by Milne ' s imagination . Christopher Robin Milne ' s own toys are now under glass in New York . The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex , South East England , where the Pooh stories were set . Milne lived on the northern edge of the Forest and took his son walking there . E . H . Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books . The adult Christopher Robin commented : " Pooh ' s Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical " . The wooden Pooh Bridge in Ashdown Forest , where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks , is a tourist attraction . Not yet known as Pooh , he made his first appearance in a poem , " Teddy Bear " , published in the British magazine " Punch " in February , 1924 . Pooh first appeared in the " London Evening News " on Christmas Eve , 1925 , in a story called " The Wrong Sort Of Bees " . " Winnie - the - Pooh " was published in 1926 , followed by " The House at Pooh Corner " in 1928 . A second collection of nursery rhymes , " Now We Are Six " , was published in 1927 . All three books were illustrated by E . H . Shepard . Milne also published four plays in this period . He also " gallantly stepped forward " to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P . G . Wodehouse ' s " A Damsel in Distress " . His book " The World of Pooh " won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958 . 1929 onwards . The success of his children ' s books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne , whose self - avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had , until then , found a ready audience for each change of direction : he had freed pre - war " Punch " from its ponderous facetiousness ; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright ( like his idol J . M . Barrie ) on both sides of the Atlantic ; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery ( although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot ) . But once Milne had , in his own words , " said goodbye to all that in 70 , 000 words " ( the approximate length of his four principal children ' s books ) , he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality , given that one of the sources of inspiration , his son , was growing older . His reception remained warmer in America than Britain , and he continued to publish novels and short stories , but by the late 1930s , the audience for Milne ' s grown - up writing had largely vanished : he observed bitterly in his autobiography that a critic had said that the hero of his latest play ( " God help it " ) was simply " Christopher Robin grown up . . . what an obsession with me children are become ! " . Even his old literary home , " Punch " , where the " When We Were Very Young " verses had first appeared , was ultimately to reject him , as Christopher Milne details in his autobiography " The Enchanted Places " , although Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote , including the long poem ' The Norman Church ' and an assembly of articles entitled " Year In , Year Out " ( which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author ) . He also adapted Kenneth Grahame ' s novel " The Wind in the Willows " for the stage as " Toad of Toad Hall " . The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7 , " The Piper at the Gates of Dawn " , could not survive translation to the theatre . A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame ' s novel . Legacy and commemoration . The rights to A . A . Milne ' s Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries : his family , the Royal Literary Fund , Westminster School and the Garrick Club . After Milne ' s death in 1956 , his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger , whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger ' s death to the Walt Disney Company , which has made many Pooh cartoon movies , a Disney Channel television show , as well as Pooh - related merchandise . In 2001 , the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $ 350m . Previously Disney had been paying twice - yearly royalties to these beneficiaries . The estate of E . H . Shepard also received a sum in the deal . The copyright on Pooh expires in 2026 . In 2008 , a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie - the - Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1 . 2 million at auction in Sotheby ' s , London . " Forbes " magazine ranks Winnie the Pooh the most valuable fictional character ; in 2002 Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $ 5 . 9 billion . A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest , unveiled by Christopher Robin in 1979 , commemorates the work of A . A . Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh . Milne once wrote of Ashdown Forest : " In that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing " . In 2003 , " Winnie the Pooh " was listed at number 7 on the BBC ' s survey The Big Read . Several of Milne ' s children ' s poems were set to music by the composer Harold Fraser - Simson . His poems have been parodied many times , including with the books " When We Were Rather Older " and " Now We Are Sixty " . Religious views . Milne did not speak out much on the subject of religion , although he used religious terms to explain his decision , while remaining a pacifist , to join the army : " In fighting Hitler " , he wrote , " we are truly fighting the Devil , the Anti - Christ . . . Hitler was a crusader against God . " His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death : He also wrote the poem " Explained " : Films . " Michael and Mary " was adapted to cinema in 1931 . The 1963 film " The King ' s Breakfast " was based on Milne ' s poem of the same name .