The House at Pooh Corner and Now We Are Six

Alan Alexander Milne pronounced m ln was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie the Pooh and for various children s poems A A Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne and Sarah Marie Milne n e Heginbotham and grew up at Henley House School, 6 7 Mortimer Road now Crescent , Kilburn, a small public school run by his father One of his teachers was H G Wells who taught there in 1889 90 Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM Milne s work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals He was discharged on February 14, 1919.After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour 1934 , which he retracted somewhat with 1940 s War with Honour During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English writer P G Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin 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 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 But I loved his stuff He married Dorothy Daphne de S lincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920 In 1925, A A Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex During World War II, A A Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield Forest Row, insisting on being plain Mr Milne to the members of his platoon He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid and by August 1953 he seemed very old and disenchanted.He was 74 years old when he passed away in 1956.