(The life and times of the real Winnie-the-Pooh by Shirley Harrison. Photo credit: Pen and Sword Books. Image above shows an old brown teddy bear against a white background with the title of the book at the top of the cover. The words Winnie-the-Pooh are written in orange)
When Christopher Robin Milne was given a small Farnell teddy bear from Harrods 90 years ago no-one realised how much it would change so many lives.
This is a wonderful biography of the real teddy bear which was the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh.
It takes us from his ‘birth’ in an Acton toy factory in 1921, to Harrods where he was bought by Mrs Daphne Milne for her baby son, Christopher Robin, and from there to the family’s home in Chelsea and at weekends and holidays down to the farmhouse on Ashdown Forest, Sussex.
It was here that Christopher Robin’s father, A.A.Milne, wrote his world-famous books detailing the adventures of the toy bear.
Eventually Pooh’s international fame soured the relationship between father and son, also generating much commercial feuding in his name.
Shirley Harrison introduces us to some of the people who knew him in Hartfield in Sussex.
Her journey then follows Pooh over the Atlantic after World War II. There he became a celebrity, eventually inspiring Disney Corporation to make him an international film star. He never returned.
Today he spends his retirement in New York’s Children’s Library with his friends from the nursery – Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Tigger.
He has become the richest, most valuable and best-loved teddy bear in the world.
This fascinating book contains many little-known facts about Winnie-the-Pooh’s remarkable life as well as unrecorded diary excerpts, interviews and photographs.
You can find further details of The life and times of the real Winnie-the-Pooh on the main catalogue, available in ‘Catalogues’ on the Library’s website.