“Winnie the Pooh doesn’t know what to do; got a honey jar stuck on his nose. He came to me asking for help and advice, and from here no one knows where he goes.” – “Return to Pooh Corner” by Loggins and Messina
Allen Alexander Milne knew exactly where he wanted his literary creation, Winnie the Pooh, to go — straight to oblivion. But, as we shall see, the Pooh Bear was more resilient than he looks.
The British born “A.A. Milne,” as he was known to millions of readers, started his career as an essayist for Punch magazine before becoming a playwright and novelist, specializing in light, whimsical stories. He enjoyed modest fame and a loyal following, including his future wife Dorothy, whom he married in part because, as he said, “She laughed at my jokes.”
That marriage would produce one child, Christopher Robin Milne, and partly as a lark, when Christopher was two, Milne wrote a poem about his son titled “Vespers,” with the silly closing line, “Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers!” Milne told Dorothy, who loved the poem, that if she could sell it she could keep the money, which she did and editors began asking Milne to write more children’s poems.
And so, with Ernest Shepard, an illustrator he met at Punch, Milne published a collection of lighthearted poems about “Christopher Robin” and a rotund little bear named “Winnie the Pooh,” who was based on one of Christopher’s favorite birthday presents. Titled “When We Were Very Young,” the book sold so well Milne was able to buy a farmhouse near Ashdown Forest outside of London. That forest was later transformed into “The Hundred Acre Wood” and became the setting for the follow-up book “Winnie-the Pooh,” which chronicled the adventures of Pooh and his animal friends Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit and Owl.
“Winnie-the-Pooh” was an even bigger success, but it dawned on Milne that he was being put into a literary straightjacket. Milne considered himself a writer of many genres and the thought of only writing children’s poems about silly animals for the rest of his life horrified him. And so, in his third book on Pooh, “The House at Pooh Corner,” he tried to kill off the honey-loving bear cub, but his editors were aghast and his readers would have none of it.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Milne must have said to himself. For the next 25 years, before he died this week (Jan. 31) in 1956, Milne wrote novels, plays, political polemics and essays. But the only stories that ever really sold — and the only stories Milne is remembered for today — were stories about Christopher Robin and Pooh.
