Is there any gentler set of children’s book characters than A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh and the other inhabitants of Hundred Acre Wood? Now a hundred years old, they are still ubiquitous and loved today, and justifiably so. Alan Alexander Milne (1882–1956) was primarily a playwright before he wrote his children’s books and was a modestly successful one at that, but it is unsurprising that his plays have been somewhat overshadowed by his later success in children’s literature. The story of his characters’ inception is quite well-known but interesting nonetheless, so if you’re comfortable, I’ll begin…
Milne was of course the father of Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based, and he enjoyed writing poetry inspired by his son. One day they visited London Zoo and out of all the animals there, young Christopher was particularly taken by the tame and amiable Canadian black bear Winnipeg, or Winnie for short. Christopher had a stuffed bear, originally named Edward, like a million other stuffed bears, but now he renamed him Winnie. A future star was born. The “Pooh” part came later from a nickname the very young Christopher had adopted for a local swan.
Not yet known as Pooh, the character made his first appearance in a poem, Teddy Bear, published in Punch magazine in February 1924 and republished the same year in Milne’s book of poetry When We Were Very Young. Illustrated by E H Shepard (1879–1976) we can see the recognisable character for the first time.
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. These three books were also illustrated by E H Shepard, who was of course a hugely important part of the Pooh story. Christopher Robin, meanwhile, seems to have had quite the knack for naming toy animals: his collection also included the perfectly-named Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger. Indeed, it was only Owl and Rabbit that A A Milne himself contributed to the final grouping, though of course it was his genius to imbue all the animals with their unique characters.
The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, where Milne went on walks with his son. Shepard drew on these landscapes to the point that the grown-up Christopher Robin would comment: “Pooh’s Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical”. You can visit the forest today, and look out for such spots as the Heffalump Trap, Eeyore’s Sad and Gloomy Place, and the wooden Pooh Bridge where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks.
