Pop Culture | By Alison Nastasi | January 18, 2014 Happy birthday, A. A. Milne. The English author is most famous for his books about an anthropomorphic bear obsessed with honey, Winnie-the-Pooh. Inspired by his son Christopher’s stuffed toy (originally named Edward), Milne and artist E. H. Shepard set out to create a magical world of talking animals. Milne’s books have fascinated generations for almost 90 years, but there’s no denying that Pooh and friends are a maudlin bunch. In fact, based on these quotes from the Pooh canon (the films included), the wistful creatures were absurdly melancholic and surprisingly existential. If you never appreciated Pooh in your youth, check out these lines that could easily be scrapped Morrissey lyrics. “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” “Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.” “Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.” “I have been Foolish and Deluded.

I am a Bear of No Brain At All.” Winnie-the-Pooh Quotes by A.A. Milne “What I like doing best is Nothing." "How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." "Oh!" said Pooh.” A. A. Milne biography - Best Poems A. A. Milne Biography Alan Alexander "A. A." 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. A. A.

Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne 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 discharged on February 14, 1919. 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 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." He 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". 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, 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. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York.

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. 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. After Milne's death, his widow sold the rights to the Pooh characters to the Walt Disney Company, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise.

Royalties from the Pooh characters paid by Disney to the Royal Literary Fund, part-owner of the Pooh copyright, provide the income used to run the Fund's Fellowship Scheme, placing professional writers in U.K. universities. Books: Novels - Lovers in London (1905) (Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne didn't like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.) - Once on a Time (1917) - Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his play Mr. Pim Passes By (1919)) - The Red House Mystery (1922) - Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.) - Four Days' Wonder (1933) A.A. Milne (Author of Winnie-the-Pooh) edit data Alan Alexander Milne (pronounced /ˈmɪln/) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. A. A.

Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne 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 atten Alan Alexander Milne (pronounced /ˈmɪln/) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne 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 discharged on February 14, 1919. 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 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." He 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". He was 74 years old when he passed away in 1956.

...more About Pooh | Most Pooh About Pooh #PoohFactoid #PoohTrivia Passing of the voice of the Backson - Winnie the Pooh 2001 - Huell Howser - age 67 when he died. The History of Winnie the Pooh Most people have the misconception that the story of Winnie the Pooh started in England.Â When I tell them, "No, he really originated in Canada", I usually get a most suprised look. It Started a Phenomonon Little didÂ the community of White River, Ontario, Canada, know that in 1914 there would be "an incident" that would start a phenomonon that would be known the world round.Â The simple sale of a bear cub wouldÂ cause the inspiration of author A.A. Milne to subsequently writeÂ one of the most loved bear stories in the world. He's from White River, you know..... Â There was a little black bear cub that became an orphan when a hunter killed her mother.Â Yes, that is right, Pooh was a "she" and didn't originally wear a red shirt.

Â She was found byÂ trapper, George Cooke,Â who brought her into the town of White River, which was a fairly common thing to do in 1914.Â Several people had bears then.Â Some have photos showing pet bears leashed and posing with family members.Â Â Lieutenant Harry Colebourn Harry Colebourn, (April 12, 1887âSeptember 24, 1947) was a Canadian veterinarian and soldier,Â was attached to the Fort Garry Horse Regiment & the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps.Â He was in charge of the horses on the troop train.Â He was headed for Val Carteir, Quebec and then on to England.Â Harry was born in England and emigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada when he was 18.Â He later moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba White River, which was founded by the Canadian Pacific Railway back in 1885, was an important stop for all trains.Â Here they would take on coal and water as well as doing some train housekeeping jobs, such as cleaning out the cinders.Â During the First World War, most trains carrying troops also carried horses, since they were used in the

 war.Â Trains would stop here from four to six hours.Â The horses were taken off the train to be watered and exercised.Â Troops were drilled along Winnipeg Street where the Train Station was located.Â It was here at the Train Station, that the trapper sold the bear cub to a soldier during a stopover.Â The soldier was Lieutenant Harry Colebourn.Â An entry in his journal reads, "August 24, 1914 Left Port Arthur 7AM.Â In train all day.Â Bought bear $20".Â A later notation identifies the town as White River.Â (Pooh's birthday is considered to be August 24th and is why "Winnie's Hometown Festival" is always celebrated the third weekend of August in White River.) Â Harry called the little cub "Winnipeg" after his hometown.Â This little bear, known as "Winnie" became a pet for the soldiers, sleeping under the cot of her master even after they reached the Salisbury Plains in England.Â As Winnie got bigger, she loved to climb the centre pole in the soldier's tent and give it a shake.Â It was becoming a concern that the tent might collapse during the night

, so she was tethered to a pole outside the tent.Â The London Zoo Harry Colebourn was now a Captain.Â In 1914 he received the news that he would soon be shipped to France.Â He knew that Winnie would not be able to accompany him, so he made arrangements to keep her in the London Zoo until he returned.Â Winnie soon became a favorite aninal attraction.Â People would knock on her door and she would open it and come out.Â She would allow children to ride on her back and she would eat from their hands.Â The attendants who cared for her stated that Winnie was completely trustworthy and compared, to other bears, was allowed to have a close relationship with guests.

Captain Colebourn visited Winnie at the Zoo whenever he was on leave.Â He always recorded his visits in his diary.Â When Harry saw how popular she was with the children and adults, he decided he would not take her back to Canada as he had planned.Â She was officially donated to the Zoo on December 1, 1918.Â A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin This little bear captured the hearts of many guest to the Zoo.Â As fate would have it, among Winnie's fans were A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin. The two became regular visitors and it was Christopher Robin who added "Pooh" to Winnie's name.Â He got the name from the swan, Pooh, who lived in his backyard at Cotchford Farms. Christopher had a bear given to him on his first birthday on August 21, 1921 which he first called Edward Bear, but soon changed to "Winnie-the-Pooh" after the playful Winnie at the London Zoo.Â Â A.A.

Milne started to write stories about a loveable bear in his children's books based on that bear in the Zoo.Â In his first edition in 1926, he mentioned that these stories were about this bear and his son and his son's stuffed animals.Â We have been told that Christopher Robin had a birthday party at the Zoo that included some of his friends and "Winnie-the-Pooh" as well, since it was held in Winnie's den. Winnie lived a long, full life in the zoo. She died on May 12, 1934 when she was 20 years old.Â She was so loved by all that the London Newspaper ran her obituary. A. A. Milne - 必应 Sign in A. A. Milne Alan Alexander Milne (/ˈmɪln/; 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.

Milne served in both World Wars, joining the British Army in World War I, and was a captain of the British Home Guard in World War II. A. A. Milne Biography Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London to parents John 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, graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903. 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 played for the amateur English cricket team the Allahakbarries alongside authors J. M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

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 commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 17 February 1915 as a second lieutenant (on probation). His commission was confirmed on 20 December 1915. On 7 July 1916, he was injured while serving in the Battle of the Somme and invalided back to England. Having recuperated, 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. He relinquished his commission on 19 February 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant. 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 fellow 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 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 British 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. 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 where 750,000 people visit them every year. 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 at Cotchford Farm, 51°05′24″N 0°06′25″E / 51.090°N 0.107°E, 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". Popular tourist locations at Ashdown Forest include: Galleon's Lap, The Enchanted Place, the Heffalump Trap and Lone Pine, Eeyore’s Sad and Gloomy Place, and the wooden Pooh Bridge where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks.

Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch magazine 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. 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.

In his literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, 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). In 1930, Milne 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. "I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next." —A. A. Milne. 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 ranked 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. In 2005, Winnie the Pooh generated $6 billion, a figure surpassed by only Mickey Mouse.

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. In 2006, Winnie the Pooh received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, marking the 80th birthday of Milne's creation. That same year a UK poll saw Winnie the Pooh voted onto the list of icons of England. 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. The 1963 film The King's Breakfast was based on Milne's poem of the same name. A. A.

Milne 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 British Home Guard: "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: The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counter-attractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course. He also wrote the poem "Explained": Elizabeth Ann "Please will you tell me how God began? Somebody must have made Him. So Who could it be, 'cos I want to know?" ^ "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" ^ Sherborne, Michael (2013). H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life. Peter Owen Publishers. ISBN978-0-7206-1348-3. ^ a b c Thwaite, Ann (January 2008).

"Milne, Alan Alexander (1882–1956)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35031. ^ "Hampstead: Education". A History of the County of Middlesex 9: 159–169. 1989. Retrieved 9 June 2008. ^ "Milne, Alan Alexander (MLN900AA)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. ^ "What is the connection between Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh and the noble sport of cricket?. BBC. Retrieved 25 November 2014 ^ The London Gazette: no. 29070. p. 1563. 16 February 1915. Retrieved 26 February 2015. ^ London Gazette. issue 29408 17 December 1915. Retrieved 26 February 2015 ^ Webb, Sam (24 April 2013). "What would Pooh say?

Files rescued from skip reveal how children's author AA Milne wrote propaganda for British military intelligence during World War One". The Daily Mail. Retrieved 26 February 2015. ^ Finch, Christopher (2000). Disney's Winnie the Pooh: A Celebration of the Silly Old Bear. Disney Editions. p.18. ISBN978-0-7868-6352-5. ^ Davidson, Max (27 March 2013). "For sale: Winnie-the-Pooh creator AA Milne's home". The Daily Telegraph (London). ^ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 31786. p. 2036. 17 February 1920. Retrieved 28 August 2015. ^ Capitalization as in the British Library Catalogue ^ "The Art of Fiction – P.G. Wodehouse" (PDF). The Paris Review. 2005. p.18. Archived from the original (pdf) on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2008. ^ "Cotchford Farm".

National Monument Records. English Heritage. Archived from the original on 12 October 2008. Retrieved 29 September 2008. ^ "Letter La Z 5 July 1917 – John Middleton Murry to Beatrice Elvery". George Lazarus Collection. 12 August 1953. Retrieved 9 June 2008. ^ Jill C. Wheeler (2010). "A. A. Milne". p. 21. ABDO Publishing Company, ^ Milne, A. A. (August 1904). "Lillian's Loves". Punch, or the London Charivari 127 (24 August 1904): 142. ^ Milne, A. A. (November 1904). "Answers to [Fictional] Correspondents". Punch, or the London Charivari 127 (9 November 1904): 333. ^ "A. A. Milne". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Archived from the original on 10 May 2008.

Retrieved 22 May 2008. ^ Eforgan, E. (2010). Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor. ISBN978-0-85303-971-6. ^ Thomas Burnett Swann (1971). A. A. Milne. Twayne Publishers. p.41. ^ Milne, Alan Alexander (1926) . "Introduction (dated April 1926)". The Red House Mystery. London: Methuen. pp.ix–xii. ^ Winnie-the-Pooh at the New York Public Library ^ a b c d Ford, Rebecca (28 February 2007) "Happy Birthday Pooh", Daily Express. Retrieved 15 October 2011 ^ a b "Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday". BBC. Retrieved 11 November 2012 ^ a b "Happy 90th birthday, Winnie the Pooh: The bear of very little brain (but VERY big bank balance)". Daily Mail. Retrieved 24 November 2014 ^ Plans to improve access to Pooh Bridge unveiled. BBC.

Retrieved 15 October 2011 ^ "Celebrate Winnie-The-Pooh's 90th With A Rare Recording (And Hunny)". NPR. 20 July 2015. ^ David A Jasen (2002). P.G. Wodehouse: A Portrait of a Master. Music Sales Group. p.114. ISBN978-0-85712-754-9. ^ Award List. "Lewis Carroll Shelf Award Winners", Lewis Carroll Shelf Award Collection, Living Arts Corporation, Loveland, Colorado. ^ Alan Hedblad (1998). "Something about the Author, Volume 100". p. 177. Gale, ^ Jill C. Wheeler (2010). "A. A. Milne". p. 19. ABDO Publishing Company, ^ "Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1940-1943, Part 1". p. 449. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 1940 ^ "Happy birthday, A.A. Milne!". Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved 14 November 2014 ^ Treneman, Ann (4 August 1998). "A bit of a stink at the Garrick over Winnie the Pooh's pot of money". The Independent (London). Retrieved 14 January 2012. ^ "Walt Disney secures rights to Winnie the Pooh". The Guardian (London). 6 March 2001. Retrieved 14 January 2012. ^ "Pooh pictures sell for £1.2m at auction". Metro (London). 18 December 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2012 ^ "Top-Earning Fictional Characters". Forbes (New York). 25 September 2003. Retrieved 11 November 2012. ^ a b "Pooh joins Hollywood Walk of Fame". BBC. Retrieved 24 November 2014 ^ "The Big Read", BBC, April 2003. Retrieved 18 October 2012. ^ "ICONS of England - the 100 ICONS as voted by the public".

Culture 24 News. 20 July 2015. ^ "The King's Breakfast (1963)". BFI. Retrieved 24 November 2014 ^ Milne, Alan Alexander (1940). War with Honour. London: Macmillan. pp.16–17. ^ Simpson, James B. (1988). Simpson's Contemporary Quotations. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN0-395-43085-2. ^ Milne, A. A. (2009). The Winnie-the-Pooh Collection Set. illustrated by E.H. Shepard. Penguin. ISBN978-0-525-42292-1. Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear Book Review What parents need to know Educational value Origin of and inspiration for beloved children's book character Winnie-the-Pooh. World War I period detail: Horses played a part in war, veterinarians traveled with the infantry.

Describes the work veterinarians do, the foods bears eat, the historical importance of diaries, family photo albums and archival records, family trees and generations. Shows types of vehicles used in the early 1900s. Positive messages The book's dedication reads: "For Cole. May this story always remind you of the impact one small, loving gesture can have." The profound implication is that the little bear, saved in Canada and transported to Europe because of war, goes on to find the friendship of a young child and inspire a classic work of children's literature. Positive role models Harry is a kind veterinarian who knows how to make sick animals "feel just right." He buys the small bear cub from a trapper, thereby saving her. He always does what's best for Winnie; when his unit is sent to active fighting, he brings her to live in a zoo even though he loves and will miss her. Harry's unit helps care for and accommodate Winnie. Christopher Robin bonds with Winnie, and A.A. Milne is inspired to write his famous stories.

Violence & scariness The violence in WWI is implied but never shown, since Winnie's delivered to the London Zoo when "the time had come to fight." There's also violence implied when Harry first meets Winnie. The text reads: "That bear lost his mother," he thought, "and that man must be the trapper who got her." And when Cole (the young boy being told the story) asks what trappers do, his mom replies, "It's what trappers don't do. They don't raise bears." Language Not applicable Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Lindsay Mattick's Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear, which won the 2016 Caldecott Medal for illustrator Sophie Blackall ( The Baby Tree , Ivy + Bean ), is a nonfiction picture book about the real-bear inspiration for the children's classic Winnie-the-Pooh -- though it reads like spellbinding fiction. The story is complex, written as three stories in one, so it could be confusing for kids under 4.

The true story is told as a bedtime tale by the author, who's actually the great-granddaughter of the protagonist, and begins in Canada, when a young veterinarian, a soldier in World War I, saves a bear cub and brings her with his unit to Europe. Before they see active fighting, he gives the bear, Winnie, to the London Zoo, where she's befriended by Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne . And the rest, of course, is literary history. For best effect, pair this book, very artfully illustrated and told, with the original, glorious Pooh stories. What's the story? FINDING WINNIE: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BEAR is the story of the inspiration for A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and is told as three stories in one. The most prominent is the story of Harry Colebourn, a young Canadian veterinarian/soldier who ships off to World War I and en route saves a young bear cub whom he names Winnie, short for his hometown of Winnipeg. When his unit is sent to combat, he takes Winnie to live at the London Zoo.

That story's told as a bedtime story to Harry's great-great-grandson by his mom, who supplies family details, supplemented by a family album that includes old photos and diary entries. Once Winnie's at the zoo, the book shifts to the third story, told separately though clearly connected. When A.A. Milne brings his young son, Christopher Robin, to the zoo, the boy befriends the bear and names his own stuffed bear after his new friend, giving birth to the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Is it any good? QUALITY Winner of the 2016 Caldecott Medal, this artful tale covers a lot of ground, but readers are carried along by the transporting detail in the art. The bear cub, rescued at a desolate whistle stop in Canada, is adorable, cuddly as a kitten. And the scenes of the soldiers give a graphic sense of the scope and daily detail of the war. Author Lindsay Mattick skillfully handles some difficult subjects -- what trappers do, the fate of soldiers at war -- and uses lyrical language. For example, when Harry's on the train, he watches "the land scroll by." Illustrator Sophie Blackall cleverly orients the reader and aids the instruction.

On a page about the family tree, she draws an actual tree, with each generation perched on a branch. Later, an "album" she pictures in the story segues into actual photos and diary entries from the time. This is a rich book that begs for repeated readings. Families can talk about... Families can talk about kindness. Why did Harry save Winnie? Why did he give her up even though he loved her? What details do you see in the pictures that show this is not our time but 100 years ago? Why were horses going to war? What kind of car is Harry driving? How were zoos different then from what they are today? How are bear cubs and other wild animals best cared for? How can we protect them? Book details Winnie the Pooh: The bear of very little brain (but VERY big bank balance) | Daily Mail Online comments Richer than the Queen and immortalised first by A.A. Milne and then Walt Disney, the most famous and remarkable teddy bear in English literature – Winnie the Pooh – is 90 years old this month.

We’re talking not of Milne’s fictional Pooh, who made his literary debut in 1925, but of the 15 in stuffed mohair toy bear who inspired his timeless stories. Pooh was ‘born’ in June 1921, one of hundreds of identical ‘Alpha’ bears produced at the respected Farnell’s factory in West London, and was bought by the author’s wife Daphne from Harrods for their new son, Christopher Robin. For the first nine years of his life, Pooh was the boy’s constant companion and over the years they were joined by Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo. Disney acquired the rights for a Winnie the Pooh film, pictured here with Tigger and Piglet In 1925, the Milne family acquired a holiday home in Cotchford Farm, in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex. Here A.A. Milne began to notice the games Christopher Robin played with Pooh and started writing about them. The Enchanted Place, the Heffalump Trap, the North Pole, Owl’s Tree, Poohsticks Bridge and all the other secrets of 100 Acre Wood were laid bare.

The first book appeared in 1926 and the bear of not-so-little brain became a hero to children the world over. But Christopher Robin was growing up and he and Pooh were soon to become permanently estranged. In 1928, Milne’s last children’s book, The House at Pooh Corner, features Christopher Robin preparing for boarding school. An illustration later produced by artist E.H. Shepard showed the boy kicking Pooh away. In 1947 Pooh departed for the US on a book tour. Then in 1961 Daphne licensed the rights to Disney – and Pooh became an international superstar. Today, he has his own place on Hollywood’s Pavement Of The Stars and lives in a glass case at the New York Public Library where 750,000 people visit him every year. A legend laid bare: 50 facts every Pooh fan should know... The original: Winnie the Pooh pictured in 1928 with his first owner, Christopher Robin 1 The bear that inspired Winnie the Pooh was an 18in-high Alpha Farnell teddy bear bought from Harrods for Christopher Robin on his first birthday.

He cost 10/6d and had a mechanism inside him that meant he could growl. 2 At first he was called Mr Edward Bear, after the proper form of Teddy. He was renamed after a real bear called Winnie at London Zoo. One story suggests that ‘Pooh’ was added because the original Winnie smelt very bad. Winnie the Pooh is called Pooh, or Pooh Bear, but never, ever, just Winnie. 3 ‘Winnie’ was short for ‘Winnipeg’ as the zoo bear had been a mascot for the Winnipeg regiment of the Canadian army during World War I. Winnie died in 1934. 4 Winnie the Pooh made his first appearance in a poem, Teddy Bear, published in Punch magazine in February, 1924. This later became the 38th poem in A.A. Milne’s collection of poetry for children, When We Were Very Young. It was an immediate bestseller. 5 Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called The Wrong Sort Of Bees. 6 E.H.

Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books using his son’s teddy called Growler as the model – not Christopher Robin’s. 7 The rest of the toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Rabbit and Tigger, were received as gifts by Christopher Robin between 1920 and 1928. 8 Eeyore’s character was apparently derived from his neck, because its stuffing lost its stiffness over time, giving the toy animal a morose appearance. 9 It wasn’t just Christopher Robin who played with the toys. Their well-worn appearance may be due to the involvement of the family dog – and Piglet’s nose was badly bitten by a neighbour’s dog. 10 Roo was lost in an apple orchard during the 1930s. 11 In Milne’s original handwritten notes, Kanga was a ‘he’ but this was altered and she became the only female in the books. 12 Winnie the Pooh has been translated into at least 46 languages – including Frisian, Mongolian and Esperanto.

In 1960, Alexander Lenard’s Latin translation Winnie ille Pu became the only Latin book ever to have been featured on the New York Times Best Seller List. Other highbrow spin-offs include The Tao Of Pooh and Pooh And The Philosophers. 13 In the ‘sport’ of Poohsticks, competitors drop sticks into a stream from a bridge and then wait to see whose stick will float across the finish line first. This game was played for real by Christopher Robin. It was played by Pooh and his friends in the book The House At Pooh Corner. Christopher Robin also disliked Pooh's impact, complaining that his father 'had filched me from me my good name and had left be with the empty fame of being his son' 14 An annual World Championship Poohsticks race takes place in Oxfordshire – this year it attracted more than 500 competitors. Nine-year-old Saffron Sollitt from Wallingford, Oxfordshire, is current world champion. 15 A.A. Milne’s initials stand for Alan Alexander. He was taught by H.G Wells and also wrote detective fiction.

Milne was already a celebrated playwright when he was inspired to write the first Winnie the Pooh book, When We Were Very Young, for his son. 16 An only child, Christopher Robin was raised by his nanny and saw his parents only for short periods three times a day. 17 Throughout childhood, he was addressed as Billy. A.A. Milne and his wife had expected a baby girl and had chosen the name Rosemary. When he turned out to be a boy, they wanted to call him Billy, but decided that was too informal, so Billy became his nickname. 18 As a child, Christopher Robin called himself Billy Moon because that was how he pronounced his last name. At first his name was Edward but one theory is that he smelt bad, leading to his renaming 19 Christopher Robin was a thin, little boy who took ‘strengthening medicine’ (like Roo’s) to help his bones and muscles grow. He later learned how to box to defend himself from teasing classmates. 20 A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin and the illustrator E.H. Shepard all came to resent Winnie the Pooh. 21 E.H.

Shepard believed that much of his later work as an artist had been sabotaged by ‘that bear’. 22 A.A. Milne regretted the popularity of Pooh because it overshadowed his other work. 23 All his Pooh works amounted in total to 70,000 words – the equivalent of a small paperback. 24 Christopher Robin also disliked Pooh’s impact, complaining that his father ‘had filched from me my good name and had left me with the empty fame of being his son’. 25 In December 1927, Christopher Robin had chickenpox and missed his singing role in his school’s Christmas concert. His mother suggested that he record some of Pooh’s Hums and other songs from A.A Milne’s poetry collections. Later, this record caused Christopher Robin to suffer merciless bullying. 26 Even his cousin Angela, years later, allowed her children to hang the record in a tree and take pot shots at it. 27 For many years, local people in Hartfield, East Sussex, where Christopher Robin grew up, were hostile to Pooh tourists but maps can now be bought there showing all the key landmarks. 28 Pooh has many high-profile fans.

As young Princess Elizabeth, the Queen loved the Pooh stories. 29 The 100 Acre Wood is based on Ashdown Forest in Sussex, which was near the Milne family’s country home, Cotchford Farm. 30 Cotchford was later bought by Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, who died there in the swimming pool in 1969. 31 In 1947, Milne’s American publisher spotted Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger and Kanga in the corner of the author’s living-room at Cotchford and asked if he could take them on a promotional tour of the US. 32 The Pooh Five have returned only twice since then – in 1969 for an exhibition of the drawings of E.H. Shepard to mark his 90th birthday, and for the 50th birthday of Winnie the Pooh in 1976. 33 In September 1987, they were presented to the New York Public Library, where they are kept in a bullet-proof display case. Winnie the Pooh: Richer than the Queen and immortalised first by A.A.

Milne and then Walt Disney - he turns 90 this month 34 In 1988 they received professional conservation treatment that included various repairs and vacuumings. They are seen by 750,000 visitors each year. 35 In 1998, Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody began a campaign to have the bears repatriated. She told Parliament: ‘Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back, so we want our Winnie the Pooh back, along with all his splendid friends.’ 36 Rudolph Giuliani, then Mayor of New York, broke off from his busy schedule to visit the animals and vowed to ‘do anything’ to keep the toys on American soil. 37 In 1930, Stephen Slesinger, an American literary agent, bought the US and Canadian merchandising and television rights to Winnie the Pooh from A.A. Milne for a $1,000 advance and two-thirds of Pooh’s subsequent earnings.

38 By November 1931 – having redrawn Pooh and given him his distinctive red T-shirt – Slesinger had a £25 million-a-year business with dolls, records, board games and puzzles. 39 In 1961, Disney acquired the rights from Slesinger’s widow Shirley for a film and associated merchandise. She was supposed to get two per cent of their worldwide revenues. In 1991, she sued tDisney, saying it had not accurately reported the earnings and owed her £100 million. 40 Forbes magazine ranks Winnie the Pooh as the second most valuable character after Mickey Mouse – it is estimated that Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone have annual sales of more than £3.75 billion. (The Queen is said to be worth about £350 million.) 41 Winnie the Pooh products can be found in more than 38 countries. 42 Since the 1970s, Pooh Bear has been voiced by three actors: Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith and Jim Cummings.

43 There are approximately 390 minutes of Winnie the Pooh film footage to date, including five feature films: The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh (1977); The Tigger Movie (2000); Piglet’s Big Movie (2003); Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005) and Winnie The Pooh (2011). 44 The latter was drawn by hand, features the voice of John Cleese and cost £15 million to make. Merchandising of Winnie the Pooh is estimated to be worth around £3.75 billion a year 45 The 1968 featurette Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day won Walt Disney a posthumous Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. 46 Pooh has his own place on Hollywood’s Pavement of the Stars. 47 In 2000, the Pavilion Gallery in Winnipeg paid $243,000 (about £150,000) for the only known oil painting of Pooh by E.H Shepard.

48 The Pembroke College Winnie the Pooh Society was established in 1993 and has become one of the most famous societies at Cambridge University. The annual subscription is £2 and the Queen is said to be a member. 49 Pooh is patron saint of teddy bears. 50 Before he became President, one of Barack Obama’s key advisers, Richard Danzig asserted that Pooh could shape US foreign policy. The future of US strategy in the war on terror, he claimed, should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: ‘If it is causing you too much pain, try something else.’ Why do we British write such wonderful children’s books? Because we’re so beastly to our children ANALYSIS By NICHOLAS TUCKER AUTHOR OF THE ROUGH GUIDES TO CHILDREN’S BOOKS Claims for British supremacy over everyone else, sporting or otherwise, have rung increasingly hollow since the end of the 19th Century. But in one area we are top of the league and have been for more than 200 years. I refer to the continuing glory of British children’s literature. What is the best children’s book?

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, of course. Who is the most popular children’s writer in the world? J.K. Rowling. Which country can boast the most famous children’s authors? We can. The record speaks for itself. Beatrix Potter’s picture books still sell worldwide and A.A. Milne’s Pooh stories have appeared in almost every language, including Latin. British children's authors continue to be successful beyond their death as A.A. Milne showed when a collection of original illustrations fetched a total of more than £1.2m at auction Recognition for the genre often came from the highest quarters. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was praised by Prime Minister Gladstone and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows elicited an enthusiastic fan letter from American President Teddy Roosevelt. Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl and Philip Pullman enjoy international standing and, at home, E. Nesbit, Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton hang on to a readership, unlike many of their literary contemporaries.

The extraordinary flowering of children’s literature in Britain in the mid-19th Century coincided with the beginning of mass literacy, the industrial revolution, the birth of cheap books and the emergence of an influential middle class. Yet Britain has never been celebrated for how it treats its real children. The only country to send significant numbers to boarding school, it also went on caning them long after other European countries stopped. But this paradox might offer a clue as to why our writing for children is often so good. Almost without exception, whenever a British children’s author has been asked for whom they are writing, they answer ‘for myself’. And, often, when details of their lives emerge, it is easy to see why this inner child might pursue extra attention and loving care through the medium of fiction. For example, Kenneth Grahame lost his mother when he was four and was transplanted to unsympathetic relatives in Berkshire. Rudyard Kipling, leaving his parents in India at the age of five, loathed the insensitive family he was billeted with in Southsea.

British greats: From Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, prove the country continues to produce the top children's writers of the world Beatrix Potter spent a lonely childhood in London cut off from other children and C.S. Lewis, whose mother died when he was nine, hated the boarding school to which he was subsequently sent, ruled by a headmaster eventually committed to a mental hospital. Arthur Ransome, Noel Streatfeild and Enid Blyton all spoke disparagingly of their childhoods in later life. Small wonder, then, thatin their stories things always work out so much better for the children involved, some of whom bear a strong physical likeness to the authors in their younger years. Famous children’s writers have not, however, always been model parents. Kenneth Grahame wrote his masterpiece when he was taking a holiday away from his disturbed son Alastair, and Christopher Robin Milne wrote an autobiography in which he accused his father of preferring to write about him rather than spend time with him. Arthur Ransome was estranged from his only child, and one of Enid Blyton’s two daughters has written bitterly about her own neglected childhood.

So, another motive for writing a children’s classic could be that the youngsters within its pages are easier to relate to than the real thing, often jealous of the time a parent is spending on their craft. Yet unhappiness alone does not create great literature. All of these authors drew on the incomparable English language in all its richness, well represented in our nursery rhymes. No other country can boast of such an extraordinary collection of timeless classics. As Dylan Thomas wrote: ‘The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself I had come to love them just for the words of them, the words alone.’ Self-selected by children over the years who remembered and then passed on their favourites long before these ever got into print, nursery rhymes, along with fairy tales and classic adventure or fantasy stories, continue to inspire each new generation of children’s authors. Some of today’s emerging authors, on past form, will achieve global acclaim, writing not just for British children but the whole of the English-speaking world. Long may they continue.

Question: A.A. Milne is most famous for creating which Bear?
Answer: Winnie the Pooh