Milne Wrote a Lot More than Winnie-the-Pooh
While studying mathematics at Cambridge , Milne focused on writing storybooks and novels. He got his degree in 1903 and decided to pursue a career in writing. He produced lots of cartoon stories for the magazine Punch . His other popular novels include The Red House Mystery (1922), The Sunny Side, The Magic Hill , Toad of a Toad Hall, and many others. The moment his books on Winnie the Pooh were published, people forgot about his previous works.
A rare Winnie-the-Pooh book showing an inscription from author A.A. Milne asking for artist E.H. Shephard to decorate his tomb is displayed at a press preview at Sotheby’s Auctioneers on December 15, 2008, in London. Sotheby’s is holding an auction of original artworks and rare first edition books featuring the famous characters by A.A. Milne from the private collections of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone on December 17, 2008. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
Despite the joy Milne brought into the lives of people with his stories on Winnie the Pooh , his life wasn’t full of joy. After he came to limelight with his Pooh stories, he wasn’t able to continue in that fame. He continued to release plays and novels, but none was able to make him as relevant as Winnie the Pooh did. He hated being known as a children’s writer. He also had issues with his son who felt Milne left him with just empty fame of being his son. They hardly visited each other. In 1952, Milne had a stroke which had him sitting on the wheelchair till when he died in 1956.