Brief biography of Milna in English. Biography

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Alan Alexander Milne was born in London on January 18, 1882. He was the youngest of three brothers named, David Barret Milne and Kenneth John Milne. His father, John Vine, was a school teacher and his mother, Sarah Maria, was a homemaker. And to no surprise, Alan Alexander could read at the age of two. Alan Alexander first attended Westminster School and then Cambridge on a mathematics scholarship. In 1903, Milne went to London to write. In 1906, he became the editor of Punch magazine. He continued on with this position for eight years. Within this time he wrote his first book; three collections of his contributions to the magazine were also published.In 1913 he married Dorothy de Selincourt, known to friends as Daphne. In 1915, during World War I, he enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served in France. During his military service he wrote three plays, all of which were seen on the London stage.After the war he chose not to return to Punch, choosing to have the freedom to write when he wanted too.

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On August 21, 1920 Christopher Robin Milne was born. A.A. Milne's only son. Christopher became an inspiration to his father. When Christopher Robin was a year old, he was given a stuffed bear. Christopher first named this bear Edward bear. And later, Christopher recieved a tiger, pig, and a donkey .The creation of bringing these toys to life is actualy credited to Daphne Milne.

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During the first World War troops from Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) were being transported to eastern Canada, on their way overseas to Europe where they should join the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade. When the train stopped at White River, Ontario, a lieutenant called Harry Colebourn bought a small female black bear cub for $20 from a hunter who had killed its mother. He named her "Winnipeg", after his hometown of Winnipeg, or "Winnie" for short.Winnie became the mascot of the Brigade and went to Britain with the unit. When the Brigade was posted to the battlefields of France, Lt. Colebourn took Winnie to the London Zoo for a long loan. Formally Colebourn presented the London Zoo with Winnie in December 1919 where it became a popular attraction and lived until 1934.The bear was also very popular by Christopher Robin, son of author A.A. Milne. It was his favorite at the zoo, and he often spent time inside the cage with it. The bear was Christopher Robin"s inspiration for calling his own teddy bear Winnie....

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One day, Christopher's father, A.A. Milne, and an artist named Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many fanciful adventures, from Piglet's encounter with a Heffalump to Eeyore's loss of his tail. These stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 70 years.

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"Winnie-the-Pooh" was published on October 14th, 1926, the verses "Now We are Six" in 1927, and "The House at Pooh Corner" in1928. All these books were illustrated in a beautiful way by E.H. Shepard, which made the books even more magical.

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The world of Winnie-the-Pooh is as popular today as when it was first created. Winnie-the-pooh has appeared in twenty-one languages, among them Hebrew Afrikaans, Esperanto, and Latin. This deluxe volume brings all of the Pooh stories together in one full-color, large-format book. The texts are complete and unabridged, and all of the illustrations, each gloriously recolored, are included. Here are the beloved stories of Pooh stuck in Rabbit's doorway, of gloomy Eeyore and his nearly forgotten birthday, of playing Poohsticks on the bridge, and so many more.

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The REAL Winnie-the-Pooh won't be found on a video, in a movie, on a T-shirt or a lunchbox. Since 1987, the REAL Pooh and four of his best friends--Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Tigger--have been living at The New York Public Library. Anyone can visit the real Winnie-the-Pooh and his pals. Every year thousands of children and their parents have come to see them. the Central Children's Room to grand new quarters in the Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street and will be on display in the Children's Room beginning in Spring 2009. Pooh and his friends are as happy as when they lived in the 100 Acre Wood .

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Christopher Milne "When I was three, my father was three. When I was six, he was six... he needed me to escape from being 50." Christopher Milne served until the end of the war with 56 Division in the Middle East and in Italy, where he was wounded. He moved to the village of Stoke Fleming and set up a bookshop in nearby Dartmouth. For twenty years he ran the shop together with his wife, Lesley.Milne is survived by his wife Lesley, and a daughter who has cerebral palsy. Milne found an outlet for his natural aptitude for carpentry by making special furniture for her. He also published three autobiographical books.

Alan Alexander Milne is a prose writer, poet, playwright, classic of English literature of the twentieth century, author of the famous “Winnie the Pooh”.

Milne was born in the London area of ​​Kilburn on January 18, 1882. Scots by birth, Alan Alexander Milne spent his childhood in London, where his father John Vine Milne owned a small private school. His early education was largely determined by the influence of his youth teacher H.G. Wells - much later Milne wrote about Wells as "a great writer and a great friend." He continued his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He subsequently donated the original handwritten copy of his book “Winnie the Pooh” and “The House on Pooh Edge” to the College Library. As a student at Cambridge, where he studied mathematics from 1900 to 1903, he wrote notes for the student newspaper Grant, and his first literary efforts were published in the humorous magazine Punch. At the age of 24, Milne began working for Punch as an assistant editor until the outbreak of the First World War, in which he took part.

In 1913 Alan Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincote, and from this marriage one son was born, Christopher Robin Milne. A born pacifist, Milne was drafted into the Royal Army and served in France. The war made a strong impression on the young writer. She became the reason why Milne, who was not particularly interested in politics, thought about what was happening in the world. His famous anti-war work, An Honorable Peace, was published in 1934. The book found a huge response in the interwar times, and in 1924 Maffin published Milne's famous When We Were Young stories, some of which had previously appeared in Punch and were well known to regular readers of the magazine.

In 1926, the first version of Sawdust Bear (in English - “bear with very small brains”) “Winnie the Pooh” appeared. The idea of ​​writing this book was suggested to Milne by his wife and little Christopher. The history of the creation of the fairy tale is full of mysteries and contradictions, but the most important thing is that it has become one of the most popular children's books. The second part of the stories “Now there are six of us” appeared in 1927 and, finally, the final part of the book “The House on the Pooh Edge” was published in 1928. It seemed to Milne that he had written something like a well-selling detective story, because his book immediately earned two and a half thousand pounds. Even after the dizzying success of Winnie the Pooh, Milne remained in doubt about his literary talent. He wrote: “All I wanted was to run away from this fame, as I used to want to run away from Punch, as I always wanted to run away... However...”
In 1922, he did write a detective novel, The Mystery of the Red House, which was published only in 1939, along with 25 other plays, short stories and Milne's autobiography, Too Late. Milne always acknowledged and repeatedly gratefully emphasized the decisive role of his wife Dorothy and his son Christopher in the writing and the very fact of the appearance of Winnie the Pooh. Books about Pooh Bear have been translated into 25 languages ​​and have taken their place in the hearts and on the shelves of millions of readers.

The first chapter of Pooh, "in which we first meet Winnie the Pooh and the bees", was first published in a London evening newspaper on December 24, 1925, and broadcast on BBC radio on Christmas Day by Donald Calfrop. The irony is that Milne was convinced that he wrote neither children's prose nor children's poetry. He spoke to the child inside each of us. He never read his Pooh stories to his son, preferring to raise Christopher on the works of his favorite writer, Wodehouse. Wodehouse subsequently returned the compliment to Milne, saying that "Milne is his favorite children's writer."
Wodehouse's books continued to live in Milne's house after his death. Christopher Robin read these books to his daughter Claire, whose bookshelves in her room were literally bursting with books by this writer. Christopher wrote to his friend Peter (an actor): “My father understood nothing about the specifics of the book market, knew nothing about the specifics of sales, he never wrote books for children. He knew about me, he knew about himself and about the Garrick Club - and he simply did not pay attention to everything else... Except, perhaps, life itself.” Christopher Robin first read the poems and stories about Winnie the Pooh 60 years after they first appeared, when he heard Peter's recordings on record.
The adventures of Winnie the Bear are loved by both adults and children. A 1996 sociological survey conducted by English radio showed that this book took 17th place in the list of the most striking and significant works published in the twentieth century. Worldwide sales of Winnie the Pooh from 1924 to 1956 exceeded 7 million. As you know, when sales exceed a million, publishers stop counting them.
In 1960, Winnie the Pooh was brilliantly translated into Russian by Boris Zakhoder. Anyone who speaks Russian and English can confirm that the translation was done with exquisite precision and ingenious ingenuity. In general, Vinnie has been translated into all European and almost all world languages.
In addition to the world famous Winnie the Pooh, Alan Milne is known as a playwright and short story writer. His plays were successfully performed on the professional stage in London, but are now staged mainly in amateur theaters, although they still attract full houses and arouse the interest of the public and the press.
In 1952 Milne became seriously ill. He had to undergo severe brain surgery. The operation was a success and Milne returned to his home in Sussex, where he spent the rest of his life reading. After a long illness, he died on January 31, 1956.
Shortly after the release of Winnie the Pooh, Milne wrote in The Nation: “I think that each of us secretly dreams of immortality... In the sense that his name will outlive the body and will live in this world, despite the fact that he himself a person has passed on to another world.” When Milne died, no one doubted that he had discovered the secret of immortality. And this is not 15 minutes of fame, this is real immortality, which, contrary to his own expectations, was brought to him not by plays and short stories, but by a little bear cub with sawdust in his head. In 1996, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold in London at an auction organized by the house of Bonham to an unknown buyer for £4,600.

Note:
The third photo is the famous photograph by Howard Coster, which depicts Alan Milne with his son Christopher Robin (who became the prototype for Christopher Robin from the Pooh stories) and Edward the bear (who inspired Milne to create Winnie the Pooh). Sepia, matte print, 1926. The original is kept in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Before the publication of fairy tales about a teddy bear with sawdust in his head, Alan Milne was a serious English playwright: he wrote novels and short stories, and composed poems. The stories about “Winnie the Pooh” fulfilled the writer’s dream - they immortalized the name, but until the end of his life Milne regretted that the world would remember him exclusively for stories about the bear cub.

Childhood and youth

Alan Alexander Milne was born on January 18, 1882 in London, the third child of Jamaican-born John Vine and British mother Sarah Marie (née Hedginbotham). The father worked as the headmaster of Henley private school, and Milne's children studied there.

Alan's teacher was the future famous science fiction writer, author of the novels “The Time Machine” and “War of the Worlds.” Of the two older brothers - Kenneth and Barry - Alan was more attached to Kenneth. In his 1939 autobiography Too Late, Milne wrote:

“Ken had one advantage over me - he was good, much better than me. After consulting Dr. Murray's work, I discover that the word "good" has fourteen meanings, but none of them convey what I mean by describing Ken. And while I continue to say that he was kinder, more generous, more forgiving, more tolerant and more merciful than I was, suffice it to say that Ken was better.

Of the two of us, you would definitely prefer him. I may have surpassed my older brother in academics, sports and even appearance - as a baby he was dropped to the ground with his nose (or picked up from the ground by his nose, we never came to a consensus), but poor Ken, or old Ken, knew how to trod a path to the heart anyone."

The parents gave the boys a decent education. Alan studied at Westminster School and graduated from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge in 1903 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. However, my heart was drawn to creativity.


While still in college, Alan and Kenneth wrote for the student magazine Granta. The humorous works, published under the initials AKM (Alan Kennet Milne), were noticed by the editors of the leading British humor magazine Punch. This is where the biography of Milne the writer began.

Books

After graduation, Milne began writing humorous poems, essays and plays for Punch, and 3 years later the author was hired as an assistant editor. During this time, Alan managed to make profitable contacts in literary circles. So, James Barry invited him to the Allahakbarries cricket team. At various times, Milne shared sports equipment with and other English writers and poets.


In 1905, Alan Milne released his debut novel, Lovers in London, which did not have an intricate plot or deep problems. At the center of the story is a young British man, Teddy, and his friend Amelia. Against the backdrop of London in the 1920s, they fall in love, quarrel, and dream of a happy future.

Critics received the book coolly, however, encouraging him for his sharp and topical articles in Punch. This forced Milne to leave “great” literature for a while and concentrate on what he was good at - stories and plays. But the First World War forced the playwright to put down his pen.


On 1 February 1915 Alan was called up as a lieutenant in the Royal Yorkshire Regiment. A year later, on July 7, he was wounded at the Battle of the Somme and sent home for treatment. The injury prevented him from returning to the front line, and he was recruited into military intelligence to write propaganda leaflets for MI7. On February 14, 1919, Milne was fired, and a year later, when the opportunity arose to recover, he abandoned his further military career. The events of the First World War are reflected in the stories “Peace with Honor” (1934) and “War with Honor” (1940).

Milne published four plays during the war years. The first, “Wurzel-Flummery,” was written in 1917 and immediately staged at the London Noël Coward Theatre. Initially, the work had three acts, but for ease of perception it had to be reduced to two.


Also in 1917, the second novel “Once upon a time, a long time ago...” was published, which began with the words: “This is a strange book.” The work is a typical tale telling about the war between the kingdoms of Euralia and Barodia. But it turns out that this fairy tale is not for children at all.

Milne created characters that kids wouldn't want to be like. The princess is able to get out of the tower on her own without waiting for rescue, the prince, although handsome, is vain and pompous, and the villain is not so bad. An interesting fact is that the prototype of Countess Belvane - proud and arrogant, prone to melodramatic, emotional behavior - was Milne's wife, Dorothy de Selincourt.


In 1922, Milne became famous for his detective novel “The Mystery of the Red House,” written in the best traditions of Arthur Conan Doyle and. The plot centers on a murder committed under strange circumstances. American critic and journalist Alexander Woollcott called the novel "one of the best stories of all time." The work turned out to be so popular that it was reprinted 22 times in the UK.

In 1926, Alan Milne's most famous book, Winnie the Pooh, was published. The author wrote the story about the teddy bear for his son, who at the age of 4 saw a Canadian bear named Winnie at the zoo. The beloved plush toy was renamed from "Edward Bear" to - Christopher thought Winnie's fur felt like swan's down.


The remaining characters - Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo's son, Tigger - were also copied from Christopher's favorite toys. They are currently kept in the New York Public Library. Every year, an average of 750 thousand people come to see them.

Winnie the Pooh has become popular far beyond the UK. In the 1960s, a children's writer translated the stories about the bear (with the exception of two chapters of the original) into Russian and combined them into the book “Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All.”


In 1969, Soyuzmultfilm released the first part of the adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The bear “talked” in the voice of the famous Soviet theater and film actor. Two years later, the cartoon “Winnie the Pooh Comes to Visit” was released, and a year later - “Winnie the Pooh and the Day of Worries.” It is characteristic that Soyuzmultfilm did not have Christopher Robin, one of the main characters, a friend of Winnie the Pooh.

The success of the tale about the bear cub first pleased Alan Milne, and then angered him - from now on he was perceived not as the author of serious novels, but as the “father” of Winnie the Pooh. Critics deliberately gave negative reviews of the novels that came out after the fairy tale - “Two”, “A Very Short-lived Sensation”, “Chloe Marr”, just to read another line about Christopher Robin and the bear.


There was another reason - the son did not like the popularity that had fallen on him. Milne once said:

“I feel like I ruined Christopher Robin's life. The character should have been named Charles Robert."

Ultimately, the boy became angry with his parents for putting his childhood on public display, and stopped communicating with them. It is assumed that the family conflict was finally resolved, since Christopher Robin attended the opening ceremony of the bear monument at the London Zoo. The statue is dedicated to Alan Milne. In a photo from that day, the 61-year-old man lovingly strokes the fur of his childhood heroine.

Personal life

In 1913, Alan Milne married the goddaughter of Punch magazine editor Dorothy de Selincourt, known to her friends as Daphne. It is noteworthy that the girl agreed to marry the writer the next day after they met.


The newly-made wife turned out to be demanding and capricious, and Alan, who was in love, indulged her. Journalist Barry Gun described family relationships this way:

“If Daphne, with a capricious curl of her lips, demanded that Alan jump from the roof of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, he most likely would have done so. In any case, 32-year-old Milne volunteered for the front of the First World War, which began a year after his marriage, solely because his wife really liked the officers in uniform who flooded the city.”

Robin Christopher Milne was born on August 21, 1920. The child did not save the family from separation: in 1922, Dorothy left Alan for a foreign singer, but, unable to build a personal life with him, she returned.

Death

In 1952, the writer suffered a stroke and was unable to recover from it.


Death found Alan Milne on December 31, 1956, at the age of 74. The cause was a severe brain disease.

Bibliography

  • 1905 – “Lovers in London”
  • 1917 – “Once upon a time...”
  • 1921 – “Mr. Pym”
  • 1922 – “The Mystery of the Red House”
  • 1926 – “Winnie the Pooh”
  • 1928 – “House on Poohovaya Edge”
  • 1931 – “Two”
  • 1933 – “A very short-lived sensation”
  • 1939 – “Too Late”
  • 1946 – “Chloe Marr”

Alexander Alan Milne (A.A. Milne, 1882-1956) is a famous British writer, playwright, poet and publicist. The general public is known as the author of children's poems and fairy tales about Winnie the Pooh, which have become classics of world literature. They have been successfully filmed in many countries around the world, including Russia. Alan Milne wrote many plays that were staged in theaters in New York, Chicago, Manchester, and Liverpool.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Alan Milne was born on January 18, 1882 in London in the Kilburn area. His father, John Milne, a teacher by training, owned a small private school, where his son studied. As a child, Alan felt jealous of his older brother, to whom, it seemed to him, his mother paid more attention. This will affect the writer’s future life, in which he will constantly prove that he is worthy of the love of others.

Among the boy's mentors was the famous science fiction writer H. Wells. Upon completion of his studies, he entered Westminster School, after which he studied the secrets of mathematics at Trinity College for three years.

From a young age, the future writer became interested in writing, and his family helped him in every possible way in his creative development, which did not fail to affect him in the future. During his student years, Alexander, together with his brother Kenneth, under the pseudonym AKM, wrote small notes, verses and fairy tales for the student newspaper "Grant".

Carier start

The brothers’ works turned out to be so in demand that Alan soon felt confident in his abilities and sent his work to the popular humorous publication “Punch” in Foggy Albion. But, to deep disappointment, his essay was not accepted.

Soon Milne sent another work - a parody of Sherlock Holmes - to the magazine Vanity Fair, where, to the surprise of the author, it was published. After this he will say: "The first appearance of my initials in a magazine... filled me with a kind of shame."

At that time, public fame was still a novelty for a modest young man.

At 24, Milne's dream came true. He became a full-time contributor to Punch magazine. His name began to appear on the pages of the publication weekly, and orders were booked months in advance. The sparkling, subtle humor expressed in poetry and prose captivated the reader, making him sincerely laugh at the characters.

In 1914, the First World War began. An opponent of wars, Alan Milne volunteered for the front, deeply convinced that this war would end all other conflicts. Disgusted by what is happening, he writes at the front at night to take his mind off the flow of blood and dead bodies. Under these conditions, the writer’s first war work, “Wurzel’s Chat,” was born. In memory of this period of life, 20 years later, the book “Peace with Honor” was written, imbued with pacifist sentiments.

After returning from the war, Milne set off on an independent voyage, completely devoting himself to his own plays. In 1921, he wrote the play “Mr. Pin Passes By,” staged on theater stages in many English and American cities. On the wave of success, a year later, Alan writes the novel “The Mystery of the Red House,” which one of the critics called the best detective story of all time.

In 1923, the family moved to North Wales for the summer, but due to the endless rain, the writer spends hours in the gazebo, peering into the sky and looking for inspiration. This is how a collection of children's poems called “When We Were Very Little” appeared, printed in record numbers. He wrote it about his son and for his son. True, later in his memoirs, Christopher Robin will say that his father based the creation of his works not on personal experience of communicating with a child, who simply did not exist, but on general ideas. And indeed it is. In the family, all issues of raising their son were entrusted to the boy’s beloved nanny.

The blossoming of a creative career

In October 1926, a book about Winnie the Pooh, a cheerful little bear with sawdust in his head, was first published in Britain. The author did not at all expect that it would create a real sensation and his name would immediately become known throughout the country. It was a rare newspaper that did not publish a photo of a famous and successful writer. Soon in an interview Milne will say: "I think that each of us dreams of immortality."

As Alexander later explained, he meant to preserve his name in people's memory.

Translated into many languages, the book excited the minds of publishers, and they demanded a continuation. Milne just needed money to treat his brother Ken, who had tuberculosis. After some persuasion, the fairy tale “The House on Pooh Edge” was written, which became the last in this cycle.

Milne's work was adapted into Russian by B. Zakhoder, who managed to accurately convey the colorful image of a good-natured bear. Despite the popular love for Winnie the Pooh, there was a person who hated this character. It turned out to be the hero of the fairy tale himself - the writer's son Christopher, who claimed that she had darkened his life. And Alan himself admitted many times that more than once he really wanted to hide from this fame.

After the death of his beloved brother Ken, in 1929, Milne wrote a new play, Michael and Mary, dedicated to the memory of a close relative. Two years later it will be staged in New York. As it turned out, this was the last serious success in the author’s creative career.

After the outbreak of World War II, Alan and his family moved to his estate, where he often imagined his childhood, his parents, and his beloved brother. The writer’s head comes up with the idea of ​​writing his own autobiography, which he will call “Too Late,” imbued with warm memories of his brother.

Personal life

In 1913, at one of the parties, Alexander met Dorothy de Selincourt, who was the goddaughter of Punch editor O. Seaman. Having gained strength and overcome his eternal shyness, he invited the girl to dance and lost his head in love. The next day the writer proposed marriage and received consent.

It turns out that Daphne (as her family called her) more than once read the works of her future husband, published in Punch magazine, and was familiar with him in absentia. Assessing this fact, Milne will say: "She had... the best sense of humor in the world."

However, over time it turns out that their marriage is far from perfect. Dorothy's complex and capricious character, coupled with her fanatical passion for the garden, because of which she paid little attention to her husband, created a deep crack in the relationship. Despite this, in 1920 the couple had their only son, Christopher Robin. As it turned out, his birth seriously influenced the creative fate of his father.

In 1931, Daphne left Milne and went to live with an American. Years later, she will return to her husband without encountering a single reproach from him.

In 1952, the writer suffered a severe stroke, from which he was never able to recover. On January 31, 1956, Alan Milne died in London after a long illness. In 1961, Daphne, to the great disappointment of her own son, sold the rights to the works about Winnie the Pooh to Walt Disney.


Nicknames:


Alan Alexander Milne (Alan Alexander Milne) - prose writer, poet, playwright, classic of English literature of the twentieth century, author of the famous "Winnie the Pooh".

Milne was born in the London area of ​​Kilburn on January 18, 1882. Scots by birth, Alan Alexander Milne spent his childhood in London, where his father John Vine Milne owned a small private school. His early education was largely determined by the influence of his youth teacher H.G. Wells - much later Milne wrote about Wells as "a great writer and a great friend." He continued his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He subsequently donated the original handwritten copy of his book “Winnie the Pooh” and “The House on Pooh Edge” to the College Library. As a student at Cambridge, where he studied mathematics from 1900 to 1903, he wrote notes for the student newspaper Grant, and his first literary efforts were published in the humorous magazine Punch. At the age of 24, Milne began working for Punch as an assistant editor until the outbreak of the First World War, in which he took part.

In 1913 Alan Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincote, and from this marriage one son was born, Christopher Robin Milne. A born pacifist, Milne was drafted into the Royal Army and served in France. The war made a strong impression on the young writer. She became the reason why Milne, who was not particularly interested in politics, thought about what was happening in the world. His famous anti-war work, An Honorable Peace, was published in 1934. The book found a huge response in the interwar times, and in 1924 Maffin published Milne's famous When We Were Young stories, some of which had previously appeared in Punch and were well known to regular readers of the magazine.

In 1926, the first version of Sawdust Bear (in English - “bear with very small brains”) “Winnie the Pooh” appeared. The idea of ​​writing this book was suggested to Milne by his wife and little Christopher. The history of the creation of the fairy tale is full of mysteries and contradictions, but the most important thing is that it has become one of the most popular children's books. The second part of the stories “Now there are six of us” appeared in 1927 and, finally, the final part of the book “The House on the Pooh Edge” was published in 1928. It seemed to Milne that he had written something like a well-selling detective story, because his book immediately earned two and a half thousand pounds. Even after the dizzying success of Winnie the Pooh, Milne remained in doubt about his literary talent. He wrote: “All I wanted was to run away from this fame, like I used to want to run away from Punch, like I always wanted to run away... However...”

In 1922, he did write a detective novel, The Mystery of the Red House, which was published only in 1939, along with 25 other plays, short stories and Milne's autobiography, Too Late. Milne always acknowledged and repeatedly gratefully emphasized the decisive role of his wife Dorothy and his son Christopher in the writing and the very fact of the appearance of Winnie the Pooh. Books about Pooh Bear have been translated into 25 languages ​​and have taken their place in the hearts and on the shelves of millions of readers.

The first chapter of Pooh, "in which we first meet Winnie the Pooh and the bees", was first published in a London evening newspaper on December 24, 1925, and broadcast on BBC radio on Christmas Day by Donald Calfrop. The irony is that Milne was convinced that he wrote neither children's prose nor children's poetry. He spoke to the child inside each of us. He never read his Pooh stories to his son, preferring to raise Christopher on the works of his favorite writer, Wodehouse. Wodehouse subsequently returned this compliment to Milne, saying that "Milne is his favorite children's author".

Wodehouse's books continued to live in Milne's house after his death. Christopher Robin read these books to his daughter Claire, whose bookshelves in her room were literally bursting with books by this writer. Christopher wrote to his friend Peter (actor): “My father understood nothing about the specifics of the book market, knew nothing about the specifics of sales, he never wrote books for children. He knew about me, he knew about himself and about the Garrick Club - and he simply did not pay attention to everything else... Except, perhaps, life itself.” Christopher Robin first read the poems and stories about Winnie the Pooh 60 years after they first appeared, when he heard Peter's recordings on record.

The adventures of Winnie the Bear are loved by both adults and children. A 1996 sociological survey conducted by English radio showed that this book took 17th place in the list of the most striking and significant works published in the twentieth century. Worldwide sales of Winnie the Pooh from 1924 to 1956 exceeded 7 million. As you know, when sales exceed a million, publishers stop counting them.

In 1960, Winnie the Pooh was brilliantly translated into Russian by Boris Zakhoder. Anyone who speaks Russian and English can confirm that the translation was done with exquisite precision and ingenious ingenuity. In general, Vinnie has been translated into all European and almost all world languages.

In addition to the world famous Winnie the Pooh, Alan Milne is known as a playwright and short story writer. His plays were successfully performed on the professional stage in London, but are now staged mainly in amateur theaters, although they still attract full houses and arouse the interest of the public and the press.

In 1952 Milne became seriously ill. He had to undergo severe brain surgery. The operation was a success and Milne returned to his home in Sussex, where he spent the rest of his life reading. After a long illness, he died on January 31, 1956.

Shortly after the release of Winnie the Pooh, Milne wrote in The Nation: “I think that each of us secretly dreams of immortality... In the sense that his name will survive the body and will live in this world, despite the fact that the person himself has passed on to another world.” When Milne died, no one doubted that he had discovered the secret of immortality. And this is not 15 minutes of fame, this is real immortality, which, contrary to his own expectations, was brought to him not by plays and short stories, but by a little bear cub with sawdust in his head. In 1996, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold in London at an auction organized by the house of Bonham to an unknown buyer for £4,600.

© Based on materials from the Internet

Biography Note:

  • The second photo is the famous photograph by Howard Coster, which depicts Alan Milne with his son Christopher Robin (who became the prototype for Christopher Robin from the Pooh stories) and Edward the bear (who inspired Milne to create Winnie the Pooh). Sepia, matte print, 1926. The original is kept in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
  • The third photograph shows Alan Milne, his wife, Dorothy Daphne de Selencourt, and their son Christopher Robin.
  • Punch is a British weekly magazine of humor and satire, published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002.


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