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 certainly didn't want a wife who was fickle as Ann.

He knew who was riding after him -- the men he had known all his life, the men who had worked for him, sworn their loyalty to him.

I'll shoot the first man who doesn't ''.

He was riding between two warriors, who held him erect when he started to slump.

A small Indian dived at Montero, who caught him with a swift upward stroke of his rifle butt.

It was, I felt, possible that they were men who, having received no tickets for that day, had remained in the hall, to sleep perhaps, in the corners farthest removed from the counter with its overhead light.

He had been one of the original Night Riders, one who had escaped the trial.

But if they really hoped to succeed they needed professionals, men who knew how to use a gun against men, who would match the killers on the other side.

Hague, like all who worked near the pits, was partly deafened from the constant assault against his eardrums.

She had offered to walk, but Pamela knew she would not feel comfortable about her child until she had personally confided her to the care of the little pink woman who chose to be called `` Auntie ''.

All of her movements were careful and methodical, partaking of the stealth of a criminal who has plotted his felony for months in advance and knows exactly which step to take next in the course of the final execution of his crime.

Facing the forest now, she who had not dared to enter it before, walked between two trees at random and headed in what she believed was the direction of the pool.

He, McBride, would be cited as in the wrong, and he, Lord, would go scot-free, an officer who had only done his duty, though perhaps too energetically.

Donna, his young wife, the girl who was both daughter and wife to him.

Those who had slickers donned them.

They trailed him across the wide hallway to the parlor, four roughly garbed and tough-looking men who probably had never before ventured into such a house.

For men who had left cattle alone after getting their first notices had received no second.

But the day of the deadline came and passed, and the men who had scoffed at the warnings laughed with satisfaction.

Lewis was a man who had made a full-time job of cow stealing.

He was a man, those neighbors testified later, who didn't have a friend in the world.

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.

But there were other homesteaders who passed the Lewis murder off as a personal grudge killing, the work of one of his neighbors.

For less than a dozen miles from the unplowed land of the dead man lived another settler who had ignored the warnings that his existence might be foreclosed on -- a blatant and defiant rustler named Fred Powell.