On October 14, 1926, a book appeared in bookstores that turned a teddy bear into a literary legend. “Winnie the Pooh“ by the English writer Alan Alexander Milne marks the beginning of a series of stories about the Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher Robin and the company, in which everyone has their own character, fears and oddities. A hundred years later, Pooh remains recognizable not only for his red shirt and love of honey, but also for the way he talks about friendship, imagination and growing up.
The book is 100 years old, but the bear is older
The anniversary in 2026 marks the publication of the first book, not the first appearance of the character. The image of the bear appeared earlier - in 1924 in the poem “Teddy Bear“. On December 24, 1925, the London newspaper “Evening News“ published the first story in which the name Winnie-the-Pooh was already recognizable. The full book was published a year later by Methuen Publishing.
Pooh is not entirely a figment of Milne's imagination. In 1921, his son Christopher Robin received a teddy bear, originally named Edward. The child later renamed it Winnie after the black bear Winnipeg, who lived at the London Zoo, and added Pooh - a name he used for a swan. Thus was born the unusual Winnie-the-Pooh.
Who are the real toys behind the characters?
Christopher Robin is the literary image of Milne's son, and his stuffed toys give faces to many of the inhabitants of the forest. Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger are related to real toys from his childhood. Owl and Rabbit, however, were invented by the writer. These items were later preserved and are now part of the New York Public Library's collection.
The appearance of the characters was created by artist Ernest Howard Shepherd. His drawings transformed Pooh into the bear that readers know today - with a round body, short legs and a curious look. In 2026, two of his preliminary pencil sketches prepared for the original book were shown for the first time. They depict scenes with Pooh, Piglet, Christopher Robin and the Owl.
The Hundred Acre Wood exists on a map
The landscape of the books was inspired by Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, where Milne lived with his family and spent time with his son. It was there that the two played the game that became “Pooh Sticks” – they drop sticks from one side of a bridge and see which one appears first on the other. The wooden bridge associated with the game is still one of the places that attract book lovers today.
Milne published another book of stories - – “The House in Pooh's Corner“ in 1928. After that, the popularity of the bear began to overtake everything else written by the author. “Each of us secretly hopes for immortality“, Milne wrote shortly before the publication of the first book. In the case of Pooh, the hope turned out to be unusually accurate: a hundred years after the first edition, his world continues to be recognizable to new generations of readers.
Source: theguardian.com