• When WWI began, Harry Colebourn of Winnipeg, Canada, volunteered to serve. On his way to report for duty in 1914, he encountered a man selling a young black bear cub whose mother had died. Colebourn bought the cub for $20 ($475 today) and brought it to England. He named the cub Winnipeg, or Winnie for short.
• The bear became his brigade’s mascot. When they left for France, Colebourn placed Winnie at the London Zoo, intending later transfer to the Winnipeg Zoo. Winnie became so popular that Colebourn made her residency permanent. The gentle bear enjoyed visits from children at the zoo.
MEANWHILE
- Alan Alexander Milne of London never wanted to be a soldier; he wanted to be a writer. After being wounded in WWI, he was assigned desk duty, producing war propaganda. After the war, he worked as an editor for “Punch,” a magazine of humor, satire, and political cartoons. His writing career gained momentum as he wrote 18 plays and three novels.
• Milne’s career shifted in 1924 when he published a collection of playful poems for children, dedicating the book to his young son.
- The book was called “When We Were Very Young.” It was illustrated by Earnest Shepard, a cartoonist and illustrator who also worked at “Punch” magazine. It sold well.
• Alan and Daphne had one child, Christopher Robin Milne, born in 1920. Alan moved the family from London to Cotchford Farm, surrounded by fields and forests for their son to explore as he grew.
- On Christopher’s first birthday, he received a stuffed bear, which he named Edward. Following a number of visits to the London Zoo to visit Winnie, Christopher Robin changed the name of his own bear to Winnie.
- Each Christmas and birthday, the family added a new stuffed toy: Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger. Amused by his son’s tall tales about these toys, Alan wrote “Winnie-the-Pooh” based on his son’s actual collection. Only Owl and Rabbit were invented, inspired by wild animals that visited. The surrounding countryside serves as “The Hundred Acre Wood” and “Pooh” was the name given to a local swan.
• The book, with whimsical illustrations by Earnest Shepard, was released in 1926 and sold quickly: about 32,000 copies in the UK and 150,000 in the U.S. in one year.
- Alan Milne followed with another book of poems, “Now We Are Six” (1927), and “The House at Pooh Corner” (1928), both illustrated by Shepard. This led to a phenomenal explosion of Winnie the Pooh mania.
• Winnie the Pooh remains an iconic part of childhood. Here are some notable facts about his story.
• Pooh was originally unclothed. His red shirt was added in 1932.
• Kanga was a “he” in Milne’s original notes but became the only female character in the books. (cont)
• The downtrodden Eeyore the donkey once stood with his head high, supported by tight stuffing and stiffened fabric. Over time, the neck lost stuffing and drooped.
- The original stuffed bear had a mechanism that allowed it to growl.
- Illustrator Earnest Shepard based his drawings on his own son’s teddy bear, Growler, not Christopher Robin’s bear.
• Alan Milne’s father (Christopher Robin’s grandfather) operated a private boarding school, which Alan attended. One of his teachers was a young H.G. Wells, who later became an iconic science fiction author.
• The publisher of the books (Methuen Publishing) was mostly known for their non-fiction, including Albert Einstein’s “Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition” published in 1920.
• Disney acquired the rights to Pooh in 1961. It is now one of Disney’s most profitable franchises, earning $3–6 billion annually—just below Mickey Mouse and above Disney Princesses and Star Wars.
• In Milne’s original books, Winnie-the-Pooh was hyphenated. Disney dropped the hyphens after acquiring the character.
- Poohsticks is a simple game introduced in “The House at Pooh Corner.” It involves players dropping sticks into a river from the upstream side of a bridge and then racing to the downstream side to see whose stick emerges first. This is the entirety of the game. The game was inspired by a real-life moment when Christopher accidentally dropped a pine cone into a river at a bridge in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex. This bridge, originally called Posingford Bridge, was later renamed Poohsticks Bridge in honor of the game and is now a popular tourist destination, attracting crowds of Pooh fans.
- Poohsticks has evolved into the annual
World Poohsticks Championships, held since 1984. Sticks are provided; they must be dropped, not thrown. The winner is the first to cross the finish line at a point downstream. Entry costs £5 per stick; all fees go to charity.
- Winnie the Pooh has been translated into over 50 languages, including Latin. The Latin version, “Winnie Ille Pu” was released in 1960. The “Times” reviewed it, calling it “the greatest book a dead language has ever known” and saying that it was “a Latinist’s delight, the very book that dozens of Americans, possibly even 50, have been waiting for.” Surprisingly, it became the only Latin book ever to make the bestseller list, where it stayed for 20 weeks, going through 21 printings, and selling 125,000 copies.
- Christopher Milne grew up, got married, had a child, opened a bookstore, and wrote his autobiography. He gave his editor the entire collection of original stuffed toys. Only Roo is missing, having been lost on an outing to an orchard in 1930. In 1987, the editor donated them to the New York Public Library in Manhattan, where they are kept in a climate-controlled display. 750,000 people view them every year. When officials in England pushed for their return to Britain in 1998, Mayor Rudy Giuliani pledged to protect them at all costs, and they remain in New York.
- Alan Milne died in 1956 at the age of 74. He resented that Pooh overshadowed his career as a serious writer. Artist Earnest Shepard also regretted being knowns as a children’s illustrator rather than a serious artist. Christopher Robin Milne died in 1996 at age 75, harboring resentments about having lived his life in the shadow of a fictional bear. The real Winnie died in 1934, living to be 20 years old—two years older than the average American black bear in the wild. Whether she had any resentments remains unknown.
