Re: Winnie the Pooh

[Johanna Halbeisen Rebecca Johnson School]

In response to the question about the whereabouts of the original Winnie the
Pooh, this long-time (almost life-long) Pooh fan did some digging to set the
record straight (and give other Pooh fans some sources):

        I went to my local public library (lord love 'em) and came up with
1)_The Enchanted Places_, by Christopher Milne, (c)1975 and currently OOP,
2) AA Milne's autobigoraphy, (c)1939, and 3) a review of #1 in Time, June
23, 1975.  Thus edified, I can tell you that AA Milne started by writing
some poetry about his son and events in his son's life, also stories to tell
his son (such as "The King's Breakfast").  These were pulbished in _When We
Were Very Young_.  _Winnie the Pooh_ was written two years later.  The
stories are about his son's stuffed animals (with Owl and Rabbit created by
the author for the stories).  Christopher Robin's toys (the ones that
remain, Roo having gotten lost in an apple orchard) are in a glass case in
the offices of E.P.Dutton on lower Park Ave in NYC.  To quote Christopher
Robin, "Pooh was the oldest, only a year younger than I was, and my
inseparable companion."  (1)  I don't believe{a bear cub is mentioned in
either auotbiography, althought CR talks about the many letters and presents
he got in his childhood because he was the real Christopher Robin.
        I urge anyone who loves the Pooh stories to find a copy of _The
Enchanted Places_ in some library.  (subtitled "A memoir of the real
Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh.)
        In 1979, Christopher Robin was running a bookstore in Dartmouth,
England.  He wrote a sequel to his first autobigraphy, titled _The Path
Through the Trees_ (c) 1979, E.P. Dutton.  It has little to do with Pooh and
much to do with the adult life of Christopher Robin.
        Greetings to all the LM_NET Pooh fans!!

--
Johanna Halbeisen, LMS                  jhalbei@k12.ucs.umass.edu
Rebecca M. Johnson School(k-8), Springfield, Massachusetts