It was during a visit to London Zoo, where Christopher became enamoured with the tame and amiable bear Winnipeg, that Milne was inspired to write the story of Winnie-the-Pooh for his son.

[2] Milne bequeathed the original manuscripts of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories to the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, his alma mater.

[7] Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge,[8] where he studied on a mathematics scholarship, graduating with a B.A.

Considered a talented cricket fielder, Milne played for two amateur teams that were largely composed of British writers: the Allahakbarries and the Authors XI.

[9][10] Milne joined the British Army during World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

[6][18] During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of fellow English writer (and Authors XI cricket teammate) P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year.

Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy.

Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend (e.g. in The Mating Season) by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers....

A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to Punch,[23][24] joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor.

His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems, When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard.

E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy Growler ("a magnificent bear") as the model.

The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A.

[33] Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch magazine in February 1924 and republished that year in When We Were Very Young.

[34] Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort of Bees".

[36] The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot in his essay The Simple Art of Murder in the eponymous collection that appeared in 1950).

[37] Another reason Milne stopped writing children's books, and especially about Winnie-the-Pooh, was that he felt "amazement and disgust" over the immense fame his son was exposed to, and said that "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him.

"[37] In his literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem "The Norman Church" and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).

[42] Milne and his wife became estranged from their son, who came to resent what he saw as his father's exploitation of his childhood and came to hate the books that had thrust him into the public eye.

A. Milne's Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries: his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club.

[48] After Milne's death in 1956, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger's death to Walt Disney Productions, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise.

[53] In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction at Sotheby's, London.

"[31] In 2003, Winnie-the-Pooh was ranked number 7 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels".

[59] An exhibition entitled Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic appeared at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 9 December 2017 to 8 April 2018.

[68] The original manuscripts for Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner are archived at Trinity College Library, Cambridge.

The collection, established at the centre in 1964, consists of manuscript drafts and fragments for over 150 of Milne's works, as well as correspondence, legal documents, genealogical records, and some personal effects.

Milne did not speak out much on the subject of religion, although he used religious terms to explain his decision, while remaining a pacifist, to join the British Home Guard.

"[72] His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death: The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief – call it what you will – than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counter-attractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.