Part of Series
“They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice.” Curl up with A.A.Milne’s classic book of poetry for children, When We Were Very Young. This is the first volume of rhymes written especially for children by Milne – as popular now as when they were first written. This collection is a heart-warming and funny introduction to children’s poetry, offering the same sense of humour, imagination and whimsy that we’ve come to expect from Milne's favourite books about Winnie-the-Pooh, that Bear of Very Little Brain. This book is all the more special due to E.H.Shepard’s decorations, which are shown in full, glorious colour. They are truly iconic and contributed to him being known as ‘the man who drew Pooh’. Do you own all the classic Pooh titles? Winnie-the-Pooh The House at Pooh Corner When We Were Very Young Now We Are Six Return to the Hundred Acre Wood The Best Bear in All the World Once There Was a Bear The nation’s favourite teddy bear has been delighting generations of children for over 95 years. Milne’s classic children’s stories – featuring Piglet, Eeyore, Christopher Robin and, of course, Pooh himself – are gently humorous while teaching lessons about friendship and kindness. Pooh ranks alongside other beloved character such as Paddington Bear, and Peter Rabbit as an essential part of our literary heritage. Whether you’re 5 or 55, Pooh is the bear for all ages.
Author
Alan Alexander Milne (pronounced /ˈmɪln/) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne and Sarah Marie Milne (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small public school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor. Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. He was discharged on February 14, 1919. After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics 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 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 married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon. 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". He was 74 years old when he passed away in 1956.
