Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear, Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by the English author A. A. Milne and the English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children’s story commissioned by London’s Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925. The character is inspired by a stuffed toy that Milne had bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store, and a bear named Winnie they had viewed at London Zoo, according to Wikipedia.
The first collection of stories about the character is the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children’s verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. The stories are set in the Hundred Acre Wood, which was inspired by Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex—situated 30 miles (48 km) south of London—where the Londoner Milne’s country home was located.
The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, including Alexander Lenard‘s Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958 and in 1960 became the only Latin book ever to be featured on The New York Times Best Seller list.[1] The original English manuscripts are held at the Wren Library in Trinity College, Cambridge (Milne’s alma mater), to which he had bequeathed the works.[2] The first Pooh book was ranked number 7 on the BBC‘s The Big Read poll.[3]
In 1961, The Walt Disney Company licensed certain films and other rights of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories from the estate of A. A. Milne and the licensing agent Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and adapted the Pooh stories, using the unhyphenated name “Winnie the Pooh”, into a series of features that would eventually become one of its most successful franchises. In popular film adaptations, Pooh has been voiced by the actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith, and Jim Cummings in English, and Yevgeny Leonov in Russian.
A. A. Milne’s U.S. copyright on the Winnie-the-Pooh character expired on 1 January 2022, as it had been 95 years since publication of the first story. The character has thus entered the public domain in the United States and Disney no longer holds exclusive rights there.
This is the first in a series of E-books and Audio Books we plan to run for YosemiteRadio.org to promote literacy. It is our idea that if you want to learn how to read, it might help to have the full text and the audio book to listen to while you read. Enjoy.
The full text is published here, in the sister publication, the New American Journal.