Milne is most famous for his 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. The source of the name is reputedly a
Canadian black bear named
Winnie (after
Winnipeg), that was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to
London Zoo after the war.
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.
Milne also wrote a number of poems, including
Vespers,
They're Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace, and
King John's Christmas, which were published in the books
When We Were Very Young and
Now We Are Six. Several of Milnes'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 overwhelming 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). Indeed, Milne's publisher was displeased when he announced his intention to write poems for children, and he had never lacked an audience.
But once Milne had, in his own words, "said Goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of the four children's books), he had no intention of producing a copy of a copy, 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.
After Milne's death, his widow sold the rights to the Pooh characters to
the Walt Disney Company, which has made a number of Pooh cartoon movies, as well as a large amount of Pooh-related merchandise. She also destroyed his papers.
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 UK universities.
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