A.A. Milne

A.A. Milne (1882-1956) in 1922. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A.A. Milne
Born	Alan Alexander Milne January 18 1882(1882-Template:MONTHNUMBER-18) Kilburn, London, England
Died	January 31 1956(1956-Template:MONTHNUMBER-31) (aged 74) Hartfield, East Sussex, England
Occupation	Novelist, playwright, poet
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Period	Edwardian
Genres	Children's literature
Notable work(s)	Winnie the Pooh
Spouse(s)	Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt (1913–1956; his death)
Children	Christopher Robin Milne

Alan Alexander Milne (18 January 1882 - 31 January 1956) was an English poet, playwright, and prose writer, best known for his children's books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, but the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all of his other work.

Life

Youth and education

Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne (who was Scottish) and Sarah Marie (Heginbotham), and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small public school run by his father. Among his teachers was H.G. Well. who taught at Henley House3 in 1889-1890.

Milne then attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While at Cambridge, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He graduated, earning a B.A. in mathematics, in 1903.

Career

1903 to 1925

After graduating from Cambridge, Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor. Initially Milne collaborated with his brother Kenneth, and their articles appeared over the initials AKM.

Considered a talented cricket fielder, A.A. Milne played for 2 amateur teams that were largely composed of British writers: the Allahakbarries and the Authors XI. His teammates included J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse.

Milne joined the British Army in World War I. He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 1 February 1915 as a 2nd lieutenant (on probation). His commission was confirmed on 20 December 1915. On 7 July 1916, he was injured in the Battle of the Somme and invalided back to England. Having recuperated, he was recruited into Military Intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI7(b) 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.

A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin, and Winnie-the-Pooh at Crotchford Farm, 1926. Photo by Howard Coster. Courtesy Wikipedia.

He married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin, was born in 1920. In 1925, he bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex.

During this period he published 18 plays and 3 novels, including a 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 canon, were published in 1925.

Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry, writing 4 stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films (founded in 1920 by 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 2 years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another 2 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."

1924 to 1928

Winnie-the-Pooh, not yet known by that name, made his earliest appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch in February 1924. He appeared as Pooh in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort Of Bees".

Milne's story collection Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A 2nd collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All 3 books were illustrated by E.H. Shepard.

Milne also published 4 plays in this period. In addition, he "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P.G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress.

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 4 principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that his main source of inspiration, his son, was growing older.

In the early 1930s, he wrote a pacifist tract titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour.

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 originally appeared, was ultimately to reject him, as Christopher Milne details in his autobiography The Enchanted Places. 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.

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 army: "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:

Elizabeth Ann

Said to her Nan:

"Please will you tell me how God began?

Somebody must have made Him. So

Who could it be, 'cos I want to know?"

—A.A. Milne's poem "Explained"

Later life

During World War II, Milne was a captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon.

Also during World War II, Milne was a prominent critic 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 (eg. 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."

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.

Writing

Prose

Winnie-the-Pooh

The actual Harrods toys purchased by A.A. Milne for his son Christopher Milne in the early 1920s, and featured in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly New York Public Library Main Branch, New York. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Milne is most famous for his 2 Pooh books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, 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'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's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Rabbit and Tigger, were incorporated into A.A. Milne's stories. Christopher Robin's toys are now under glass in New York.

The fictional Hundred Acre Wood, where the Pooh stories were set, derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England. Milne lived on the northern edge of the Forest 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". The wooden Pooh Bridge in Ashdown Forest, where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks, is a tourist attraction.

Poetry

Milne's 2 volumes of nursery rhymes, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, have never been out of print. Along with the 2 collections of Pooh stories, they make up the 4-volume Pooh Canon.

The 4 books are often sold as a single set.

Recognition

A.A. Milne memorial, Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, UK. Photo by Ben Gamble. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy [http:// geograph.org].

Detail of memorial plaque. Photo by Nigel Freeman. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy geograph.org.

Milne's book The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest, unveiled by Christopher Milne in 1979, commemorates the work of A A. Milne and E.H. 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 poll The Big Read which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time.

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.

An elementary school in Houston, Texas, United States, operated by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), is named after Milne. The school, A. A. Milne Elementary School in Brays Oaks, opened in 1991. In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2m at auction in Sotheby's, London.

Disney

The rights to the Pooh books were left to 4 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 the Walt Disney Company, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, new Winnie-the-Pooh books (which are not part of the Pooh Canon), and copious Pooh-related merchandise. In 2001, the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $350 million. Previously Disney had been paying twice-yearly royalties to these beneficiaries. The estate of E.H. Shepard also received a sum in the deal. Disney's copyright on Pooh expires in 2026.

Forbes magazine ranks 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.

The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil (alternate Version)

In popular culture

Kindergarten Cop - "Spring Morning"

Milne's play Michael and Mary was adapted to cinema in 1931.

The 1963 film The King's Breakfast was based on Milne's poem of the same name.

Several of Milne's children's poems were set to music by composer Harold Fraser-Simson.

Milne is portrayed by Domhnall Gleeson in Goodbye Christopher Robin, a 2017 independent British film drama directed by Simon Curtis.

In the 2018 fantasy film Christopher Robin, an extension of the Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise, Tristan Sturrock plays A.A. Milne.

The opening 4 lines of the 1st and last verses of Jefferson Airplane's 1967 song, "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," were almost word-for-word quotes of Milne's poem "Spring Morning" from When We Were Very Young.

In the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop, the title character (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) read the final 8 lines from "Spring Morning" to his kindergarten class.

Milne's nursery rhymes have been parodied many times, including with the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty.

Publications

Poetry

• For the Luncheon Interval: Cricket, and other verses (poems from Punch). London: Methuen, 1925.
• Behind the Lines: A book of poems. London: Methuen, 1940; New York: Dutton, 1940; Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1940.
• The Norman Church. London: Methuen, 1948.

Plays

• First Plays. London: Chatto & Windus, 1919; New York: Knopf, 1920.
• Mr. Pim Passes By: A comedy in three acts. London & New York: Samuel French, 1921.
• Second Plays London: Chatto & Windus, 1921; New York: Knopf, 1922.

Novels

• Lovers in London. London: Alston Rivers, 1905.
• Mr. Pim (novelisation of his play Mr. Pim Passes By). London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1921; New York: Doran, 1922.
• The Red House Mystery. London: Methuen, 1922; New York: Dutton, 1922.
• Two People. London: Methuen, 1931; New York: Dutton, 1931.
• Four Days' Wonder. London: Methuen, 1933; New York: Dutton, 1933.
• Chloe Marr. London: Methuen, 1946; New York: Dutton, 1946.

Short fiction

• The Holiday Round. London: Methuen, 1912.
• Once A Week. London: Methuen, 1914.
• Happy Days. New York: Doran, 1915.
• The Sunny Side: Short stories and poems for proper grown-ups. London: Methuen, 1921; New York: Dutton, 1922.
• Those Were the Days: The day's play, The holiday round, Once a week, The sunny side. London: Methuen, 1929; New York: Dutton, 1929.
• Birthday Party, and other stories. New York: Dutton, 1948; London: Methuen, 1949.
• A Table Near the Band, and other stories. London: Methuen, 1950; New York: Dutton, 1950.

Non-fiction

• Not that It Matters (essays). London: Methuen, 1919; New York: Dutton, 1920.
• If I May (essays). London: Methuen, 1920; New York: Dutton, 1921.
  • By Way of Introduction (essays & reviews). London: Methuen, 1929; New York: Dutton, 1929.
• When I was Very Young. London: Methuen / New York: Fountain Press, 1930.
• Peace With Honour: An enquiry into the war convention. London: Methuen, 1934; New York: Dutton, 1934.
• It's Too Late Now: The autobiography of a writer. London: Methuen, 1939.
  • published in U.S. as Autobiography. New York: Dutton, 1939.
• War With Honour. London: Macmillan, 1940.
• War Aims Unlimited. London: Methuen, 1941.
• Year In, Year Out (illustrated by E. H. Shepard). London: Methuen, 1952; New York: Dutton, 1952.

Juvenile

Verse

• When We Were Very Young (illustrated by E.H. Shepard). London: Methuen, 1924; New York: Dutton, 1924.
• Now We Are Six (illustrated by E.H. Shepard). London: Methuen, 1927; New York: Dutton, 1927; Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1927.
• The World of Christopher Robin: The complete 'When We Were Very Young' and 'Now We Are Six' (illustrated by E.H. Shepherd). New York: Dutton, 1958.

Stories

• The Day's Play. London: Methuen, 1910.
• Once on a Time (illustrated by Charles Robinson). London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917; New York & London: Putnam, 1922.
• A Gallery of Children (illustrated by Henriette Willebeek le Mair). London: Stanley Paul, 1925; Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1925.
• Winnie-the-Pooh (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard). London: Methuen, 1926; New York: Dutton, 1926.
• The House at Pooh Corner (illustrated by E.H. Shepard). London: Methuen, 1928; New York: Dutton, 1928; Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1928.
• The Magic Hill, and other stories (illustrated by Helen Sewell). New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1937.
• The World of Pooh: The complete Winnie-the Pooh and House at Pooh Corner (illustrated by E.H. Shepard). New York: Dutton, 1957; Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1957; London: Methuen, 1958.
• The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh. New York: Dutton, 1994.

Collected editions

• The Pocket Milne. New York: Dutton, 1941.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Plays

Stage plays

Milne wrote over 30 plays, including:

• "Wurzel-Flummery: A comedy in one act" (1917)
• "Belinda: An April Folly in three acts" (1918)
• "The Boy Comes Home: A comedy in one act" (1918)
• "Make-Believe" (1918) (children's play)
• "The Camberley Triangle: A comedy in one act" (1919)
• "Mr. Pim Passes By: A comedy in three acts" (1919)
• "The Red Feathers: An operetta in one act" (1920)
• "The Romantic Age: A comedy in three acts" (1920)
• "The Stepmother: A play in one act" (1920)
• The Truth about Blayds (1920)
• The Dover Road (1921)
• The Great Broxopp (1921)
• "The Lucky One: A play in three acts" (1922)
• The Artist: A Duologue (1923)
• Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the UK)
• Ariadne (1924)
• The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924)
• To Have the Honour (1924)
• Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926)
• Success (1926)
• Miss Marlow at Play (1927)
• The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928)
• The Ivory Door (1929)
• Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows)
• Michael and Mary (1930)
• Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm)
• Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936) [based on Pride and Prejudice]
• Sarah Simple (1937)
• Gentleman Unknown (1938)
• The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross
• The Ugly Duckling (1941)
• Before the Flood (1951)

Screenplays

Milne wrote 4 stories filmed in 1920 for Minerva Films:

• The Bump (starring Aubrey Smith)
• Twice Two
• Five Pound Reward
• Bookworms

Spring Morning By A.A. Milne

AA Milne Poems for Children-0

See also

• English children's poets
• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

Fonds

• Milne, Alan Alexander (1882-1956) in the National Archives
• A.A. (Alan Alexander Milne collection at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

External links

Poems

• "Spring Morning"
• A.A. Milne 1882-1956 at the Poetry Foundation
• Poetry by A.A. Milne at AllPoetry
• Alan Alexander Milne at PoemHunter (52 poems)

Prose

• Essays by Milne at Quotidiana.org
• Milne extract in the Guardian

Books

• Works by A.A. Milne at Project Gutenberg
• A.A. Milne at Amazon.com
• Works by or about A.A. Milne in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

About

• A.A. Milne in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• A.A. Milne's profile at Just-Pooh.com
• Alan Alexander Milne biography at Pooh Corner
• A.A. Milne - The Author at WinniethePooh.co.uk
• A.A. Milne at NNDB