winnie the pooh original christopher robin

For several years, after the publication of the series, the books of verse containing a few poems mentioning Pooh, were more popular than the stories.

Milne divided his work into four volumes known collectively as the Winnie The Pooh books – the first and third are books of verse while the remaining two are stories about Pooh Bear and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. Milne’s Pooh books are about a boy named Christopher Robin, named after his own son, Christopher Robin Milne, and the other characters were inspired by his son’s stuffed animals – Winnie (previously Edward), Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger – and Owl and Rabbit, that were created through Milne’s own imagination. When I grew up, however, I began to view Milne’s motivations differently there was more to his work than meets the eye. As a child, I viewed Milne’s work as isolated from himself – it seemed as if he had built a world and anthropomorphised characters for the enjoyment of little children. Milne’s perfectly created world for children. I grew up devouring the Pooh stories, sometimes reading with my grandmother, and at other times, alone – transporting myself to A.A. Pooh and his friends, along with Christopher Robin – the master of the animals – became a significant part of my growing up years. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh books in my childhood, like one would trace the map of Hundred Acre Wood to find ‘Pooh’s Trap for Heffalumps’ or the ‘Where the Woozle Wasn’t’ or ‘Eeyore’s Gloomy Place: Rather Boggy and Sad’.

But it is an important space that contextualises their craft and provides for a structure for their impetuses to create. The connection between an author and their raison d’être to create is a sacrosanct space that sometimes readers are either unwilling or uninterested to explore. Can the intention of an author’s work be traced through their stories? Is it possible to saunter through their works and understand their primary motivations to create? Why did an author use a particular phraseology? Why did they reach out to a certain audience? What prompted them to tell the story in a particular way? These are often the questions we are confronted with when trying to piece together narratives about authors, their storytelling and their body of work.

Winnie the pooh original christopher robin