The World of Alan Alexander Milne

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh….

“Sometimes Winnie-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort when he comes downstairs, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly in front of the fire and listen to a story. This evening --

“‘What about a story?’ said Christopher Robin.

“‘What about a story?’ I said.

“‘I suppose I could,’ I said. ‘What sort of stories does he like?’

“‘About himself. Because he’s that sort of Bear.’

“‘Oh, I see.’

“‘So could you very sweetly?’

“‘I’ll try,’ I said.

“So I tried” (Milne, The World of Pooh, 7-8).

Children and adults alike would agree that Alan Alexander Milne succeeded in telling stories about Edward Bear. We all know the sorts of mishaps that the animals that played in that enchanted Forest got themselves into, but many of us did not know that these stories were based on a real little boy, the author’s own son. And Pooh? He, too, was real. He was Christopher Robin’s favorite toy, just as Alan Alexander Milne describes their relationship in “Us Two.”

So wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
‘What would I do?’ I said to Pooh,
‘If it wasn’t for you,’ and Pooh said ‘True,
It isn’t much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together,’ says Pooh, says he.
‘That’s how it is,’ says Pooh. (The World of Christopher Robin, 142)

A.A. Milne details the adventures of his son and his stuffed bear in Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. Pooh was not the only character that evolved from Christopher Robin’s toy chest. Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo were all real toys of the real Christopher Milne, and each toy’s personality came from its owner, not from the author. Milne did create Owl and Rabbit, and eventually added Tigger, too. In his autobiography, Milne hints that his idea for the other animals came from his own childhood experiences. He was the youngest of three brothers and always considered to be “the good one” (Milne, Autobiography, 15). Milne was quick with numbers, and his father logically expected him to be a mathematician. And then, if he was good enough, he would become schoolmaster of the preparatory school that his father ran. Milne says his father was so sure of the plan that “he had it all worked out in his notebook: the salary I should get at first, my share of income as partner, the allowance to be paid to him when he retired . . . all obligations discharged. Blue-black ink, red ink, little ticks in pencil as he checked each item” (Autobiography, 185).

Milne destroyed his father’s hopes when he announced that he wanted to be a writer, not a mathematician. However, Milne’s father took his son’s decision well. He warned him: “‘We can’t all be Dickenses, you know.’” (Autobiography, 187). “‘Just think a moment, darling, of all the people who want to write, and how very few of
them --’” (Autobiography, 186-7). But Milne never let him finish.

“‘Naturally I’m thinking of the very few of them.’” (Autobiography, 187). Aspiring writers have no other choice than to think of the few who succeed. And Milne did succeed with his series of children’s poems and stories, but he filled many different positions before he experienced that success. He was a soldier, an editor, and a playwright before he wrote for children.

But Milne was always very talented when it came to writing. He published the very first piece that he submitted. It earned him a mere fifteen shillings.

“Sherlock Holmes had just ‘returned’ in The Strand Magazine after his duel with Moriarty. I wrote a burlesque of this, which I sent to Punch. Punch refused it, and I sent it to Vanity Fair. I can remember the last two lines of the dialogue between Holmes and Watson.”

“‘And Moriarty?’ I said. ‘What of him?’

“‘There was no such man,’ said Holmes. ‘It was merely the name of a soup.’” (Milne, Autobiography, 193).
When Milne first saw his initials in print he was not only surprised, since he was never informed that his piece was being published, but, unlike most writers, he felt a tinge of embarrassment.

In his autobiography, Milne explains how he came across his piece while waiting for his brother to join in a “nondescript club” in London (Autobiography, 194).

“‘I picked up Vanity Fair, wondering on which page of it, one day, my parody might appear. To my utter disappointment I found that somebody had forestalled me; somebody else had written a Holmes parody . . . Jealously I read the opening paragraph. Dash the man, he had even got my first joke, about the Persian slipper! I read on . . . and then suddenly with beating heart, glanced at the end:

“‘There was no such man,’ said Holmes. ‘It was merely the name of a soup.’
A. A. M.

“‘First pale with the shock of it, then red with embarrassment, I glanced nervously round the room. My secret was out. Was everybody looking at me? This first appearance of my initials in a London paper which all London could read filled me with ridiculous shame. Only for a moment of course. Then I read the article through lingeringly: line by matchless line, loving every beautiful word of it” (Autobiography, 194).

Now how did the man who started out writing a burlesque of Sherlock Holmes, end up writing children’s books? It was really quite natural and an obvious step in his career.

“‘. . .[T]here I was with an exercise book and a pencil, and a fixed determination not to leave the heavenly solitude of the summer-house until it stopped raining . . . and there in London were two people [a book illustrator, Harry Roundtree and an editor, Rose Fyleman] telling me what to write . . . and there on the other side of the lawn was a child with whom I had lived for three years . . . and here within me were unforgettable memories of my own childhood . . . what was I writing? A child’s book of verses obviously. Not a whole book, of course, but to write a few would be fun -- until I was tired of it. Besides, my pencil had an india-rubber at the back; just the thing for poetry’” (Milne, Autobiography, 280).

Milne went on to write two books of children’s poetry and two more of short stories: When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six, Winnie-the-Pooh, and The House at Pooh Corner.

Then, he grew tired of it.

Christopher Robin was going away.
Nobody knew why he was going;
nobody knew where he was going;
indeed, nobody even knew why
he knew that Christopher Robin
was going away. But somehow or
other everybody in the Forest felt
that it was happening at last. (The World of Pooh, 298)

Christopher Robin grew up and became more interested in mathematics than stories. And the real Pooh and Piglet and the others were sealed in a glass case that hung on the nursery wall. “But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing” (Milne, The World of Pooh, 313-14).

Works Cited
Milne, A. A. Autobiography. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1939.

Milne, A. A. The World of Christopher Robin. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 1958.

Milne, A. A. The World of Pooh. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 1957.

Written by: Laurie Esposito Harley