A. A. Milne's Birthday
Next: January 18, 2027
A bear of very little brain.
The story
Where it comes from
Alan Alexander Milne was born in London on 18 January 1882, and this Story marks his birthday. He studied mathematics at Cambridge, wrote humorous verse and essays for Punch and had success as a playwright before he found his true calling in verses written for his son, Christopher Robin. Christopher's toys, a teddy bear from Harrods given on his first birthday in 1921 and later a donkey, a piglet, a kangaroo and a tiger, became the friends of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), illustrated by E. H. Shepard.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance, but his birthday is a perfect day to read a Pooh story aloud, or to play Poohsticks from a bridge over a stream. The real toys that inspired the books, Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger, can be seen at the New York Public Library, and Ashdown Forest in Sussex, near the Milne family home, was the model for the Hundred Acre Wood.
Did you know
- Pooh's name came from Winnie, a black bear at London Zoo who had been the mascot of a Canadian regiment from Winnipeg, and Pooh, a swan in one of Milne's poems.
- The toy Roo is missing from the library's display: he was lost in an apple orchard in the 1930s.
- One of Milne's teachers at his father's school was the young H. G. Wells.
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- Lord Byron's Birthday · January 22, 2027