Winnie-the-Pooh

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the original character. For other uses, see Winnie-the-Pooh (disambiguation).
"Pooh Bear" and "Pooh" redirect here. For the musician, see Poo Bear. For other uses, see Pooh
(disambiguation).
Winnie-the-Pooh
Pooh in an illustration by E. H. Shepard
• When We Were Very Young (1924; as Edward Bear)
First appearance • Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

• A. A. Milne
Created by • E. H. Shepard

Based on Winnie the bear

In-universe information
• Pooh Bear
Nickname • Pooh

Species Teddy Bear

Gender Male
Home Hundred Acre Wood
Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear, Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional
anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and 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 based on a stuffed toy that Milne had
bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store.[1]
The first collection of stories about the character was 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 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 have been featured on The New York Times Best Seller list.[2] The original English
manuscripts are held at Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge, Milne's alma mater to whom he
had bequeathed the works.[3]
In 1961, The Walt Disney Company licensed certain film 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 actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith, and Jim Cummings in English, and
Yevgeny Leonov in Russian.

History
Origin

Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear ("Winnie-the-Pooh"), Eeyore, and

Piglet. Roo was also one of the original toys, but was lost during the 1930s.
A. A. Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher
Robin Milne, on whom the character Christopher Robin was based. Shepard in turn based his
illustrations of Pooh on his own son's teddy bear named Growler, instead of Christopher Robin's
bear.[4] The rest of Christopher Milne's toys – Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger – were
incorporated into Milne's stories.[5][6] Two more characters, Owl and Rabbit, were created by
Milne's imagination, while Gopher was added to the Disney version. Christopher Robin's toy bear is
on display at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library in New York City.[7]

Harry Colebourn and Winnie, 1914

In 1921, Milne bought his son Christopher Robin the toy bear from Harrods department store.[1][8]
Christopher Robin had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear he often saw at
London Zoo, and Pooh, a friend's pet swan they had encountered while on holiday.[9][10] The bear
cub was purchased from a hunter for C$20 by Canadian Lieutenant Harry Colebourn in White
River, Ontario, while en route to England during the First World War.[11] Colebourn, a veterinary
officer with the Fort Garry Horse cavalry regiment, named the bear Winnie after his adopted
hometown in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[12][13] Winnie was surreptitiously brought to England with her
owner, and gained unofficial recognition as The Fort Garry Horse regimental mascot. Colebourn
left Winnie at the London Zoo while he and his unit were in France; after the war she was officially
donated to the zoo, as she had become a much-loved attraction there.[14] Pooh the swan appears as
a character in its own right in When We Were Very Young.

A. A. Milne took his son Christopher Robin to see the amiable

bear that inspired Milne to write the story.[15]
In the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne offers this explanation of why Winnie-the-Pooh is
often called simply "Pooh":
But his arms were so stiff ... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and
whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think – but I am
not sure – that that is why he is always called Pooh.

American writer William Safire surmised that the Milnes' invention of the name "Winnie the Pooh"
may have also been influenced by the haughty character Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The
Mikado (1885).[16]

Ashdown Forest: the setting for the stories

Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, south east England. It overlooks

Five Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh.
The Winnie-the-Pooh stories are set in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, England. The forest is an area
of tranquil open heathland on the highest sandy ridges of the High Weald Area of Outstanding
Natural Beauty situated 30 miles (50 km) south-east of London. In 1925 Milne, a Londoner, bought
a country home a mile to the north of the forest at Cotchford Farm, near Hartfield. According to
Christopher Robin Milne, while his father continued to live in London "...the four of us – he, his
wife, his son and his son's nanny – would pile into a large blue, chauffeur-driven Fiat and travel
down every Saturday morning and back again every Monday afternoon. And we would spend a
whole glorious month there in the spring and two months in the summer."[17] From the front lawn
the family had a view across a meadow to a line of alders that fringed the River Medway, beyond
which the ground rose through more trees until finally "above them, in the faraway distance,
crowning the view, was a bare hilltop. In the centre of this hilltop was a clump of pines." Most of
his father's visits to the forest at that time were, he noted, family expeditions on foot "to make yet
another attempt to count the pine trees on Gill's Lap or to search for the marsh gentian". Christopher
added that, inspired by Ashdown Forest, his father had made it "the setting for two of his books,
finishing the second little over three years after his arrival".[18]
Many locations in the stories can be associated with real places in and around the forest. As
Christopher Milne wrote in his autobiography: "Pooh's forest and Ashdown Forest are identical."
For example, the fictional "Hundred Acre Wood" was in reality Five Hundred Acre Wood; Galleon's
Leap was inspired by the prominent hilltop of Gill's Lap, while a clump of trees just north of Gill's
Lap became Christopher Robin's The Enchanted Place, because no-one had ever been able to count
whether there were 63 or 64 trees in the circle.[19]
The landscapes depicted in E. H. Shepard's illustrations for the Winnie-the-Pooh books were
directly inspired by the distinctive landscape of Ashdown Forest, with its high, open heathlands of
heather, gorse, bracken and silver birch, punctuated by hilltop clumps of pine trees. Many of
Shepard's illustrations can be matched to actual views, allowing for a degree of artistic licence.
Shepard's sketches of pine trees and other forest scenes are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum
in London.[20]
The game of Poohsticks was originally played by Christopher Robin Milne and his father on the
wooden footbridge,[21] across the Millbrook,[22] Posingford Wood, close to Cotchford Farm. In
the stories Pooh plays the game with the other characters, Christopher Robin, Tigger, and Eeyore.
[23] The location is now a tourist attraction, and it has become traditional to play the game there
using sticks gathered in the nearby woodland.[21][24] When the footbridge had to be replaced in
1999, the architect used as a main source drawings by Shepard in the books, and retained its
precursor's original style.[25]

First publication

24 December 1925 London Evening News

Christopher Robin's teddy bear made his character début, under the name Edward, in A. A. Milne's
poem, "Teddy Bear", in the edition of 13 February 1924 of Punch (E. H. Shepard had also included
a similar bear in a cartoon published in Punch the previous week[26]), and the same poem was
published in Milne's book of children's verse When We Were Very Young (6 November 1924).[27]
Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name on 24 December 1925, in a Christmas story commissioned
and published by the London newspaper Evening News. It was illustrated by J. H. Dowd.[28]
The first collection of Pooh stories appeared in the book Winnie-the-Pooh. The Evening News
Christmas story reappeared as the first chapter of the book. At the beginning, it explained that Pooh
was in fact Christopher Robin's Edward Bear, who had been renamed by the boy. He was renamed
after an American black bear at London Zoo called Winnie who got her name from the fact that her
owner had come from Winnipeg, Canada. The book was published in October 1926 by the publisher
of Milne's earlier children's work, Methuen, in England, E. P. Dutton in the United States, and
McClelland & Stewart in Canada.[29] The book was an immediate critical and commercial success.
[30] The children's author and literary critic John Rowe Townsend described Winnie-the-Pooh and
its sequel The House at Pooh Corner as "the spectacular British success of the 1920s" and praised
its light, readable prose.[31]

Appearance
The original drawing of Pooh was based not on Christopher Robin's bear, but on Growler, the teddy
bear belonging to Shepard's son Graham, according to James Campbell, husband of Shepard's great-
granddaughter. When Campbell took over Shepard's estate in 2010, he discovered many drawings
and unpublished writings, including early drawings of Pooh, that had not been seen in decades.
Campbell said, "Both he and A. A. Milne realised that Christopher Robin's bear was too gruff-
looking, not very cuddly, so they decided they would have to have a different bear for the
illustrations."[32] Campbell said Shepard sent Milne a drawing of his son's bear and that Milne
"said it was perfect". Campbell also said Shepard's drawings of Christopher Robin were based
partly on his own son.[32]

Character

Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). Illustration by E. H. Shepard.

In the Milne books, Pooh is naive and slow-witted, but he is also friendly, thoughtful, and steadfast.
Although he and his friends agree that he is "a bear of very little brain", Pooh is occasionally
acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense. These include riding in
Christopher Robin's umbrella to rescue Piglet from a flood, discovering "the North Pole" by picking
it up to help fish Roo out of the river, inventing the game of Poohsticks, and getting Eeyore out of
the river by dropping a large rock on one side of him to wash him towards the bank.
Pooh is also a talented poet and the stories are frequently punctuated by his poems and "hums".
Although he is humble about his slow-wittedness, he is comfortable with his creative gifts. When
Owl's house blows down in a windstorm, trapping Pooh, Piglet and Owl inside, Pooh encourages
Piglet (the only one small enough to do so) to escape and rescue them all by promising that "a
respectful Pooh song" will be written about Piglet's feat. Later, Pooh muses about the creative
process as he composes the song.

Winnie-the-Pooh (1926).
Pooh is very fond of food, particularly honey (which he spells "hunny"), but also condensed milk
and other items. When he visits friends, his desire to be offered a snack is in conflict with the
impoliteness of asking too directly. Though intent on giving Eeyore a pot of honey for his birthday,
Pooh could not resist eating it on his way to deliver the present and so instead gives Eeyore "a
useful pot to put things in". When he and Piglet are lost in the forest during Rabbit's attempt to
"unbounce" Tigger, Pooh finds his way home by following the "call" of the honeypots from his
house. Pooh makes it a habit to have "a little something" around 11:00 in the morning. As the clock
in his house "stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago", any time can be Pooh's snack
time.
Pooh is very social. After Christopher Robin, his closest friend is Piglet, and he most often chooses
to spend his time with one or both of them. But he also habitually visits the other animals, often
looking for a snack or an audience for his poetry as much as for companionship. His kind-
heartedness means he goes out of his way to be friendly to Eeyore, visiting him and bringing him a
birthday present and building him a house, despite receiving mostly disdain from Eeyore in return.
Devan Coggan of Entertainment Weekly saw a similarity between Pooh and Paddington Bear, two
"extremely polite British bears without pants", adding that "both bears share a philosophy of
kindness and integrity".[33]
Posthumous sequels
An authorised sequel Return to the Hundred Acre Wood was published on 5 October 2009. The
author, David Benedictus, has developed, but not changed, Milne's characterisations. The
illustrations, by Mark Burgess, are in the style of Shepard.[34]

Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, London, where in 1921

Milne bought the stuffed toy for his son that would inspire the character. Pooh visits Harrods in a
2021 authorised prequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: Once There Was a Bear.
Another authorised sequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: The Best Bear in All the World, was published by
Egmont in 2016. The sequel consists of four short stories by four leading children's authors, Kate
Saunders, Brian Sibley, Paul Bright, and Jeanne Willis. Illustrations are by Mark Burgess.[35] The
Best Bear in All The World sees the introduction of a new character, Penguin, which was inspired by
a long-lost photograph of Milne and his son Christopher with a toy penguin.[36][37]
In 2016, Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen was published to mark the 90th anniversary of Milne's
creation and the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. It sees Pooh meet the Queen at Buckingham
Palace.[38]
In 2021, marking a century since Milne bought the stuffed toy from Harrods department store for
his son Christopher Robin that would inspire Milne to create the character, Winnie-the-Pooh: Once
There Was a Bear, the first prequel to Milne's books and poetry about the bear, was authorised by
the estates of Milne and Shepard.[1] Inspired by the real life of Christopher Robin, it is written by
children's writer Jane Riordan in the style of Milne, with illustrations by Mark Burgess emulating
the drawings of Shepard.[1] It sees Winnie-the-Pooh exploring Harrods as well as visit London's
Natural History Museum and London Zoo, before leaving London and going back to the Hundred
Acre Wood.[1]

Stephen Slesinger
On 6 January 1930, Stephen Slesinger purchased US and Canadian merchandising, television,
recording, and other trade rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works from Milne for a $1,000 advance
and 66% of Slesinger's income.[39] By November 1931, Pooh was a $50 million-a-year business.
[40] Slesinger marketed Pooh and his friends for more than 30 years, creating the first Pooh doll,
record, board game, puzzle, US radio broadcast (on NBC), animation, and motion picture.[41]
Red shirt Pooh
The first time Pooh and his friends appeared in colour was 1932, when he was drawn by Slesinger
in his now-familiar red shirt and featured on an RCA Victor picture record. Parker Brothers
introduced A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh Game in 1933, again with Pooh in his red shirt. In the
1940s, Agnes Brush created the first plush dolls with Pooh in a shirt.[42][43]

Disney exclusivity (1953–2021)

Main articles: Winnie the Pooh (franchise) and Winnie the Pooh (Disney character)
After Slesinger's death in 1953, his wife, Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, continued developing the
character herself. In 1961, she licensed rights to Walt Disney Productions in exchange for royalties
in the first of two agreements between Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and Disney.[44] The same year, A.
A. Milne's widow, Daphne Milne, also licensed certain rights, including motion picture rights, to
Disney.
Since 1966, Disney has released numerous animated productions starring its version of Winnie the
Pooh and related characters, starting with the theatrical featurette Winnie the Pooh and the Honey
Tree. This was followed by Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and
Tigger Too (1974). These three featurettes were combined into a feature-length movie, The Many
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, in 1977. A fourth featurette, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore,
was released in 1983.
A new series of Winnie the Pooh theatrical feature-length films launched in the 2000s, with The
Tigger Movie (2000), Piglet's Big Movie (2003), Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005), and Winnie the
Pooh (2011).
Disney has also produced television series based on the franchise, including Welcome to Pooh
Corner (Disney Channel, 1983–1986), The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (ABC, 1988–1991),
The Book of Pooh (Playhouse Disney, 2001–2003), and My Friends Tigger & Pooh (Playhouse
Disney, 2007–2010).
A.A. Milne's U.S. copyright in the Winnie-the-Pooh character expired at the end of 2021, 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. Independent filmmaker Rhys
Frake-Waterfield capitalized on this shortly thereafter by producing a horror film titled Winnie-the-
Pooh: Blood and Honey.[45] The UK copyright will expire on 1 January 2027, the 70th year since
Milne's death.[46]
Playdate with Winnie The Pooh, an animated series of musical shorts by Disney Television
Animation and OddBot Inc. for Disney Junior, became the first project from Disney to be released
after the original book and characters became public domain.[47][48][49][50]

Merchandising revenue dispute

Pooh videos, soft toys, and other merchandise generate substantial annual revenues for Disney. The
size of Pooh stuffed toys ranges from Beanie and miniature to human-sized. In addition to the
stylised Disney Pooh, Disney markets Classic Pooh merchandise which more closely resembles E.
H. Shepard's illustrations.
In 1991, Stephen Slesinger, Inc., filed a lawsuit against Disney which alleged that Disney had
breached their 1983 agreement by again failing to accurately report revenue from Winnie the Pooh
sales. Under this agreement, Disney was to retain approximately 98% of gross worldwide revenues
while the remaining 2% was to be paid to Slesinger. In addition, the suit alleged that Disney had
failed to pay required royalties on all commercial exploitation of the product name.[51] Though the
Disney corporation was sanctioned by a judge for destroying forty boxes of evidentiary documents,
[52] the suit was later terminated by another judge when it was discovered that Slesinger's
investigator had rummaged through Disney's garbage to retrieve the discarded evidence.[53]
Slesinger appealed the termination and, on 26 September 2007, a three-judge panel upheld the
lawsuit dismissal.[54]
After the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Clare Milne, Christopher Robin Milne's daughter,
attempted to terminate any future US copyrights for Stephen Slesinger, Inc.[55] After a series of
legal hearings, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the US District Court in California found in favour
of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., as did the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On 26
June 2006, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, sustaining the ruling and ensuring the
defeat of the suit.[56]
On 19 February 2007, Disney lost a court case in Los Angeles which ruled their "misguided claims"
to dispute the licensing agreements with Slesinger, Inc., were unjustified,[57] but a federal ruling of
28 September 2009, again from Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, determined that the Slesinger family
had granted all trademarks and copyrights to Disney, although Disney must pay royalties for all
future use of the characters. Both parties expressed satisfaction with the outcome.[58][59]

Other adaptations
Literature
• 2022. The Call of Poohthulhu, an anthology of Lovecraftian horror short stories set in the
Winnie-the-Pooh universe[60]

Theatre
• 1931. Winnie-the-Pooh at the Guild Theater, Sue Hastings Marionettes[61]
• 1957. Winnie-the-Pooh, a play in three acts, dramatized by Kristin Sergel, Dramatic
Publishing Company
• 1964. Winnie-the-Pooh, a musical comedy in two acts, lyrics by A. A. Milne and Kristin
Sergel, music by Allan Jay Friedman, book by Kristin Sergel, Dramatic Publishing
Company
• 1977. A Winnie-the-Pooh Christmas Tail, in which Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends help
Eeyore have a very Merry Christmas (or a very happy birthday), with the book, music, and
lyrics by James W. Rogers, Dramatic Publishing Company[62]
• 1986. Bother! The Brain of Pooh, Peter Dennis
• 1992. Winnie-the-Pooh, small cast musical version, dramatized by le Clanché du Rand,
music by Allan Jay Friedman, lyrics by A. A. Milne and Kristin Sergel, additional lyrics by
le Clanché du Rand, Dramatic Publishing Company
• 2021. Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Adaptation[63]
Audio

Selected Pooh stories read by Maurice Evans released on vinyl LP:

• 1956. Winnie-the-Pooh (consisting of three tracks: "Introducing Winnie-the-Pooh and
Christopher Robin"; "Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets into a Tight Place"; and "Pooh and Piglet
Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle")
• More Winnie-the-Pooh (consisting of three tracks: "Eeyore Loses a Tail"; "Piglet Meets a
Heffalump"; "Eeyore Has a Birthday")
In 1951, RCA Records released four stories of Winnie-the-Pooh, narrated by Jimmy Stewart and
featuring the voices of Cecil Roy as Pooh, Madeleine Pierce as Piglet, Betty Jane Tyler as Kanga,
Merrill Joels as Eeyore, Arnold Stang as Rabbit, Frank Milano as Owl, and Sandy Fussell as
Christopher Robin.[64]
In 1960, HMV recorded a dramatised version with songs (music by Harold Fraser-Simson) of two
episodes from The House at Pooh Corner (Chapters 2 and 8), starring Ian Carmichael as Pooh,
Denise Bryer as Christopher Robin (who also narrated), Hugh Lloyd as Tigger, Penny Morrell as
Piglet, and Terry Norris as Eeyore. This was released on a 45 rpm EP.[65]
In the 1970s and 1980s, Carol Channing recorded Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner and
The Winnie the Pooh Songbook, with music by Don Heckman. These were released on vinyl LP and
audio cassette by Caedmon Records.
Unabridged recordings read by Peter Dennis of the four Pooh books: