A. Milne

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.

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 two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story ; and after another two years he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books.

The real stuffed toys owned by Christopher Robin Milne and featured in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh.

Other notable characters created by Milne include the bouncy Tigger and gloomy Eeyore.

Milne lived on the northern edge of the Forest and took his son walking there.

Milne also published four plays in this period.

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 four principal children's books ), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.

A. Milne memorial plaque at Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, England, the setting for Winnie the Pooh

A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel.

A. Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh.

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.

Some consider this more of a short story collection ; Milne didn't like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.

A. Milne in the National Portrait Gallery.

* Essays by Milne at Quotidiana. org

He dismissed the possibility at once.

He jerked once in the grass and lay still.

It was hotter once they reached the flat, and drier, but the grass was better.

Its front was windowless, but irregularities in the masonry might be an indication that windows, now blinded, had once looked out upon the street.

I was at once disappointed, although just what I had expected him to look like I could not have explained.

The mountainside grew steeper and she slipped once or twice on the smooth pine needles.

Never, he'd once told Joyce, had he encountered any man or situation that called for a gun.

Joyce had seen him like this once before -- more than once, actually, but on one particularly memorable occasion.

They crowded him in that threatening way once more, forced him to give in.

William Lewis made the rounds of all who lived near him again, that August morning after a bullet landed at his feet, and once more he accused and threatened everyone.

I found a trooper once the Apache had spread-eagled on an ant hill, and another time we ran across some teamsters they'd caught, tied upside down on their own wagon wheels over little fires until their brains was exploded right out o' their skulls.

`` My reputation's my stock in trade '', Tom mentioned more than once.

Forced behind him momentarily, Russ followed at once and halted two steps inside.

He thought once that he identified the somewhat hysterical voice of Fleischman claiming a kill.

`` Moriarty '', my driver suddenly exclaimed with something so definite, so final in his tone I once more repeated the absurdity, mustering all my latent powers of hypocrisy to sound convinced.

Hardly had Mrs. Roebuck driven off when a rusty pick-up truck, father or grandfather of Senor `` Moriarty's '' Ford sedan, came screeching to a dust-swirling stop, and a brown face appeared, its nose threatened by shards of what had once been the side window.

He caught up with me once and grabbed me, but I was all covered with zing -- it's very slippery, you know ''.

But a young American has a bath next to his room and I shall ask him if you might use it this once.

`` I suppose '', he muttered, `` I can sell the outfit for enough to send you home to your folks, once we find a settlement ''.

`` That tub is going to explode all at once ''.

She might have been someone he had once loved.

The man had spoken only once.

The sneaker reached out once more to tap against the mass and Ramey's vision darkened except for an unreasonable clarity of the man's leg.

Old Commodore Forsythe, who had once lost a fifty-dollar bet on whether he could get both motors started and turn on the running lights without accidentally turning on something else first.