The Men Who Created Winnie-the-Pooh : The Lives of A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard

When A.A. Milne and E.H Shepard first came together in 1923 to create the world of Winnie-the-Pooh and his companions in the Hundred Acre Wood, no one could have foreseen the impact this unique collaboration was going to have on children’s literature and, indeed, children, all over the world. Now, one hundred years on, the characters they created are still as cherished as they ever were.

Millions of books in fifty different languages have been sold around the world; films have been huge global box-office successes; merchandise from pyjamas to placemats – all have contributed to keep Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in our hearts and minds. But what of the two men who created these iconic characters?

How did they come to collaborate and what were the secrets of their successful partnership?In this beautiful full-colour volume, author James Campbell brings to life these two remarkable men, their professional and personal relationships, complex families, strengths and weaknesses.

From working together at Punch magazine in the early 1920s and co-creating the four iconic Winnie-the-Pooh titles – When We Were Very Young (1924), Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Now We Are Six (1927) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) – through the success of the books and their reception both at home and abroad, their wartime experiences, other collaborations (most notably on Shepard’s renowned illustrations for and Milne’s dramatization of Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows into Toad of Toad Hall) and their legacies which continue to this day. Illustrated with excerpts from original manuscripts and drawings, previously unseen draft illustrations, photographs, documents, ephemera and more, this timely book looks back on their lives and work, from the first sketches to the illustrations we know and love and on to the characters’ later incarnations at Disney for new generations.