{"id":159,"date":"2014-07-13T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/?p=159"},"modified":"2014-07-13T14:49:12","modified_gmt":"2014-07-13T19:49:12","slug":"winnie-the-pooh-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"The Pooh Files: Fighting Over a Silly Old Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This is one of a series of posts in which we are sharing stories from our upcoming book that were cut from the original manuscript.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Betsy here and I know Pooh.\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Better rephrase that.\u00a0 To be a bit more specific I know Winnie-the-Pooh.\u00a0 Having worked with The Children’s Center at 42nd Street I had the unique privilege of working beside the famous toys of Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, and Kanga (Roo was lost by Christopher Robin in the woods long ago).\u00a0 Not everyone knows that the toys inspired the books.\u00a0 The toys are currently on exhibit at the main branch of NYPL as part of the ABC of It<\/a> exhibit.\u00a0 However, no matter how sweet they are today, not everything’s always been plummy in their past.\u00a0 Consider the following:<\/p>\n

\"A._A._Milne_with_his_son_Christopher_Robin_Milne_and_Pooh_Bear_-_Howard_Coster_-_NPG_P715\"<\/a>It\u2019s one of the most famous photographs of children\u2019s literature, the one of A. A. Milne, the original Winnie-the-Pooh, and Christopher Milne in 1926. Hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., this image by Howard Coster is certainly the best known photo of the author of the Winnie-the-Pooh tales.<\/p>\n

But what most people don\u2019t know is that Christopher Robin Milne himself came to resent not only this picture — with his father, he asserted, in an unnatural pose, forcing an intimacy that didn\u2019t really exist between them — but to also begrudge the reputation the character of Christopher Robin brought him in his lifetime. As Brian Sibley has written, \u201c{g}rowing up burdened with the name of a child who had once gone \u2018Hoppity, hoppity, hoppity, hoppity, hop\u2019 and who was famous throughout the world for saying his prayers was anything but easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"index\"<\/a>It was August 1921, and Mrs. Daphne Milne purchased for her son, Christopher Robin (called Billy Moon in the family), a handsome bear from Harrods\u2019 toy department in London as a present for his first birthday. The adult Christopher was to later recall that \u201cthe bear took his place in the nursery and gradually he began to come to life.\u201d It was when A.A. Milne first put Christopher Robin\u2019s name into print (in his poem about the child praying at the foot of his bed) that Billy Moon\u2019s literary reputation was born. Subsequently it was no time at all until his toys, including this bear of golden mohair, were incorporated into Milne\u2019s writing. The toy became the most famous bear in the world, brought to life in A. A. Milne\u2019s tales as the Bear of Very Little Brain, though his first appearance in print was as \u201cTeddy Bear\u201d in the pages of Punch<\/em> in 1924. (The drawings of the bear were done, as was Winnie-the-Pooh at a later date, by E. H. Shepard, though barely. \u201cWhat on earth do you see in this man? He\u2019s perfectly hopeless,\u201d Milne told the magazine staff about Shepard. And, interestingly, the bear who posed for the Punch<\/em> verses was Growler, a favorite teddy bear of the artist\u2019s son, not Christopher Robin\u2019s beloved bear, known then as Big Bear, Mr. Edward, or simply Teddy Bear.)<\/p>\n

Winnie, the Bear of Very Little Brain, turned the Milne family into one of household names. \u201cEverybody\u2019s Talking about this Book\u201d ran a headline in the New York Telegraph<\/em> in November 1925 \u2013 and right above a photo of Christopher Robin himself. Eventually, A. A. Milne, also a novelist and playwright, came to resent the fact that his children\u2019s stories garnered more attention than his writings for adults. After The House at Pooh Corner<\/em>, he ceased writing about Pooh and his friends, stating, \u201cI gave up writing children\u2019s books. I wanted to escape from them . . . In vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"220px-HouseAtPoohCorner\"<\/a>But it was Christopher Robin who truly experienced the burdens of fame. He was almost eight when\u00a0The House at Pooh Corner<\/em>\u00a0was published, and as biographer Thomas Burnett Swann noted, his days for inspiring and listening to stories about a little boy and his teddy bear were waning. He was already feeling the stress at his boarding school of his classmates identifying him as the boy with Pooh Bear, and tiring of the expectation to be the whimsical child of the book.<\/p>\n

He and his family eventually drifted apart, and in 1974 he wrote a memoir called The Enchanted Places<\/em> in which he documented some of his bitterness over having felt like a showpiece in his father\u2019s eyes: \u201cIn pessimistic moments, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.\u201d And it was in The Path Through the Trees <\/em>that he wrote again of the shyness, self-consciousness, and awkwardness he felt as a child, embarrassed by his name as well as his appearance. To be sure, he had also said, \u201cI also quite liked being Christopher Robin and being famous. There were indeed times… when it was exciting and made me feel grand and important.\u201d But clearly a glaring spotlight had been placed on the child, whose name had been taken for the books, and he would have to come to terms, as an adult, with this life-long publicity. In 1929, Christopher\u2019s father wrote:<\/p>\n

\u2026Pooh is a Bear of Very Little Brain, Tigger Bouncy, Eeyore Melancholy<\/em>\u00a0and so on. I have exploited them for my own profit, as I feel I have not\u00a0<\/em>exploited the legal Christopher Robin. All I have got from Christopher Robin\u00a0<\/em>is a name which he never uses, an introduction to his friends . . . and a gleam\u00a0<\/em>which I have tried to follow. However, the distinction, if clear to me, is not\u00a0<\/em>clear to others; and to them, anyhow, perhaps to me also, the dividing line b<\/em>etween the imaginary and the legal Christopher Robin becomes fainter with\u00a0<\/em>each book. This, then, brings me (at last) to one of the reasons why these\u00a0<\/em>verses and stories have come to an end. I feel that the legal Christopher Robin\u00a0<\/em>has already had more publicity than I want for him. Moreover, since he is\u00a0<\/em>growing up, he will soon feel that he has had more publicity than he wants for<\/em>\u00a0himself.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, his father was right, Christopher once having stated that, if the Pooh books had been less in number and published only occasionally, the spotlight may have been less glaring. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he added, \u201cthe fictional Christopher\u00a0Robin\u00a0refused to die and he and his real-life namesake were not always on the best of terms. For the first misfortune (as it sometimes seemed) my father was to blame. The second was my fault.” Eventually, however, perhaps by writing his two-volume autobiography, Christopher Robin came to terms with his legacy. He wrote in the second volume that the reception to the first memoir lifted him from under the shadow that was the character Christopher Robin and his father, \u201cand to my surprise and pleasure, I found myself standing beside them in the sunshine able to look them both in the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

To say that you hate the original Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em> books, even if you’re starring in them, does not win you universal love and praise (though, in sharp contrast, saying you hate the Disney version of Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em> may lead to love and approbation in certain circles). Interestingly, when the classic books penned by A.A. Milne started selling like hotcakes, the backlash was almost immediately evident.<\/p>\n

\"dorothy-parker\"<\/a>First came the professional critics, none whom were more notorious than that Algonquin Roundtable wit, Dorothy Parker. A sometimes reviewer for The New Yorker<\/em>, it must have been a particularly gleeful editor that handed her a copy of The House at Pooh Corner<\/em> so that she might have her way with it. Nor did Ms. Parker disappoint. She begins by describing the first story in full until she breaks down with a wry, \u201cOh, darn \u2013 there I\u2019ve gone and given away the plot. Oh, I could bite my tongue out.\u201d She continues to recount the book, often word-for-word to convey Milne\u2019s particular style until at last Pooh says that he entered the word \u201cPom\u201d into his song \u201cto make it more hummy.\u201d Says Parker, “And it is that word \u2018hummy,\u2019 my darlings, that marks the first place in \u2018The House at Pooh Corner\u2019 at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.” This by page five alone. She immediately ends the review there and goes on to critique Charles Pettit\u2019s Elegant Infidelities of Madame Li Pei Fou<\/em>, mentioning at one point that \u201cHe has, so to speak, put in things to make it more hummy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contemporary authors of the time weren\u2019t universally overwhelmed by the title\u2019s delights either. In a letter to his friend L.J. Potts, the author T.H. White spoke about his future classic The Sword in the Stone<\/em>, unable to resist working in a couple digs at the stuffed bear. \u201cWriting books is a heart breaking job. When I write a good one it is too good for the public and I starve, when a bad one you and Mary are rude about it. This Sword in the Stone<\/em> (forgive my reverting to it and probably boring you sick–I have nobody to tell things to) may fail financially through being too good for the swine. It has (I fear) its swinish Milneish parts (but, my God, I’d gladly be a Milne for the Milne money)\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"original-winnie\"<\/a>In what might be the most crushing blow, even the books\u2019 illustrator grew less than entirely entranced with what, to a certain extent, was his own creation. E. H. Shepard had no dreams or aspirations of being the acclaimed genius behind the illustrations of beloved children\u2019s books like The Wind in the Willows<\/em> or Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em>. Rather, he wanted to be known as a political cartoonist, a job that he held from 1921 to 1953 in spite of his granddaughter noting, \u201cHe neither found it easy to get a likeness nor could he manage the sheer indignation which gives political satire its weight.\u201d It is interesting to note, though, that even his political cartoons would make reference to literary folks like the Alice in Wonderland<\/em> illustrator (and fellow political cartoonist) Sir John Tenniel. Just the same, he was less than thoroughly entranced to be considered merely a man behind Pooh.<\/p>\n

As for the author himself, in his autobiography Too Late Now<\/em>, Milne answers these critics, noting that any time a book gets popular it is instantly suspect. \u201cIt is inevitable that a book which has had very large sales should become an object of derision to critics and columnists . . . If any other artist goes into twenty editions, then he is a traitor to the cause, and we shall hasten to say that he is not one of Us.\u201d Said he of Parker\u2019s barb in particular, “No writer of children’s books says gaily to his publisher, ‘Don’t bother about the children, Mrs. Parker will love it\u2019.\u201d Unfortunately, rather than leaving well enough alone he goes one to say that \u201cthere is no artistic reward for a book written for children other than the knowledge that they enjoy it.\u201d A surprise, no doubt, to those authors and illustrators laboring under the impression that artistic satisfaction and popularity with youth can be attained simultaneously with talent.<\/p>\n

So what happened to the real Winnie-the-pooh toys if Christopher Robin felt such ambiguity towards them?\u00a0 Well, in 1947 A.A. Milne gave the toys to the American publisher E.P. Dutton. And when Milne died, his widow sold them to the same company. Around 1981, John Dyson (who had run for the Senate the previous year) bought Dutton, and in 1985 he took Pooh and his friends home with him. Indeed, many believed that this would be the last they would ever hear of Pooh.\u00a0 In her touching New York Times<\/em> article<\/a> “The Library at Pooh Corner,” author and professor Jenny Boylan writes of the handover and the effect it had on the toys’ caretaker Elliot Graham.\u00a0 She writes, “the glass case in the E. P. Dutton lobby was empty afterward, and Elliot Graham had no animals to shepherd any more. Some days you\u2019d see him just standing there, looking into the empty case. It was sad.”<\/p>\n

Yet as it happens, Dyson decided to donate the toys to the library so that they could be \u201cpossessed by all the people who ever read and loved the stories.\u201d Awww. A sweet ending to a sweet story.<\/p>\n

But wait. There\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

\"index-1\"<\/a>That Pooh and friends continue to exist is nothing short of extraordinary. With the possible exception of Misty of Chincoteague (a different kind<\/em> of stuffed animal<\/a>), Pooh is a very rare artifact. A literary character based off of a real world toy that is now on display for one and all to see. However there is one little point of interest that has not eluded notice. Pooh is a British bear and he lives, not in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England, but rather in a New York Public Library in America.<\/p>\n

By 1998 Winnie-the-Pooh had been safely ensconced in the Donnell Library Branch of NYPL for a good eleven years. That\u2019s when British Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody took a trip to New York City and was shocked to find England\u2019s beloved animals housed in a U.S. children\u2019s room. Upon her return, and in tabling a Commons question to Chris Smith, the Secretary of State of Culture, she asked for the dolls back. \u201cI saw them recently and they looked very unhappy, indeed,\u201d Dunwoody reported to the press. \u201cI\u2019m not surprised, considering they have been incarcerated in a glass case in a foreign country for all these years. Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back \u2013 so we want our Winnie the Pooh back, along with all his splendid friends.\u201d One might point out that the Greeks never quite did get their Marbles back (and that Pooh was given up willingly by its owner whereas the Marbles . . . not so much), so it is probably not too surprising that when Americans heard what Dunwoody had to say, they grew incensed.<\/p>\n

\"_53935_pooh150\"<\/a>It is perhaps most unfortunate for the MP that she brought up this issue during the term of Mayor Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani. The man who tasked himself with cleaning up New York City was hardly going to allow the Brits to start, in his mind, pushing Yanks around, even if it was over a single silly old bear. The New York Post<\/em> reported with glee, \u201cGiuliani to Brits: POOH ON YOU!\u201d A tongue-in-cheek release from the mayor\u2019s office at the time declared proudly, \u201cMAYOR GIULIANI MEETS WITH WINNIE THE POOH AND ASSURES HIM THAT HE IS SAFE AND SOUND IN NEW YORK CITY: Mayor Also Meets With Tigger, Kanga, Piglet and Eeyore And Warns British Not To Interfere With Legal Immigrants.\u201d Indeed, Giuliani did actually visit with Pooh and friends, posing for multiple press pieces.<\/p>\n

It got silly after that. The Express<\/em> in London reported that they had contacted Stormin\u2019 Norman (if that dates it any) and that his aides told them, \u201cLike all good battles, the success is in the planning. He\u2019s going to spend time looking at your idea before committing himself. I\u2019m sure this will appeal to his sense of fair play.\u201d New York Governor George Pataki went on the record saying, \u201cThere\u2019s no better place in the world for this kind of exhibit.\u201d Westchester\/Queens Congresswoman Nita Lowey next introduced a resolution that would keep the toys in New York City. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair were scheduled to meet during this time anyway, and a spokesperson for the White House did say, \u201cWe do not expect this to be on the formal agenda of the meeting between President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair, although we would not exclude that it could come up in discussions.\u201d Later, Bill Clinton\u2019s press secretary Mike McCurry said, \u201cThe notion that the United States should lose Winnie is utterly unbearable.\u201d Groan. Finally on Good Morning America<\/em> Tony Blair himself went so far as to proclaim for one and all to hear, \u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019re perfectly well looked after where they are.\u201d As for the claim that they were unhappy, the PM simply said, \u201cI seem to remember from the stories they always did look a bit unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>Of course, New Yorkers are known for their oddly (some might say, ridiculously) long memories. In 2007 reporter Danny Freeman decided to return to the old debate by seeking out Pooh\u2019s guestbook in the Donnell Library. \u201cStill, nearly a decade later, tourists continue to trade barbs on the pages of Pooh\u2019s guest book, where recent entries like \u2018Free the Winnie-the-Pooh 5!\u2019 and \u2018Please send winnie & friends home to the UK\u2019 clash with retorts of \u2018Never to the UK \u2013 we are his home now.\u2019\u201d That debate may have been put to rest for the time being, however. Pooh no longer resides in the reportedly dusty case of the Donnell Library, but now he and his friends are ensconced in relative splendor in the main branch of New York Public Library. Safely housed in the Children\u2019s Center, Pooh and friends have their own little room, complete with murals on each of the walls depicting E. Shepherd illustrations from Milne\u2019s original stories, as donated by Penguin Books.<\/p>\n

As for where the bear truly \u201cprefers\u201d to be, as Gyles Brandreth, former Tory legislator and founder of the Teddy Bear Museum in Stratford-on-Avon, commented, \u201cNeither A.A. Milne nor Christopher Robin had any regrets about them living permanently in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barry, Dan. \u201cBack Home to Pooh Corner? Fuhgetdaboudit, Mayor Says.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> 5 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Barry, Dan. \u201cPooh-Cornered, Blair Cedes Bear: Britain Won’t Demand That New York Return Stuffed Animals.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Benson, Tim. \u201cThe man who hated Pooh.\u201d BBC News<\/em> 6 Mar. 2006. http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/magazine\/4772370.stm<\/p>\n

Boylan, Jennifer Finney. \u201cThe Library at Pooh Corner.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> 21 Dec. 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cCampaign to free the Pooh Five: A Scandal That Would Rock Seven Acre Wood.\u201d The Independent (London)<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Freedman, Danny. \u201cA Trans-Atlantic Dust-Up That Never Seems to End.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> 12 Aug. 2007: 10. Print.<\/p>\n

Gallix, Francois (ed). Letters to a Friend: The Correspondence Between T.H. White and L.J. Potts<\/em>. Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1984.<\/p>\n

Giuliani, Rudolph. \u201cMayor Guiliani Meets With Winnie The Pooh And Assures Him That He Is Safe And Sound In New York City: Mayor Also Meets With Tigger, Kanga, Piglet and Eeyore And Warns British Not To Interfere With Legal Immigrants.\u201d 5 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Harmerman, Don. \u201cOh, Pooh: A Tempest in Winnie’s Honey Pot.\u201d International Herald Tribune (Paris)<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Massarella, Linda. \u201cGiuliani to Brits: POOH ON YOU!: Trans-Atlantic battle over original ‘Winnie’ dolls.\u201d New York Post<\/em> 5 Feb. 1998: 4-5.<\/p>\n

Milne, A.A. It’s Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer<\/em>. London, England: Methuen & Co. LTD, 1939.<\/p>\n

Morris, Edmund. \u201cDeport the Bear!.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> 9 Feb. 1998: n. pag.<\/p>\n

O’Flynn, Patrick, and Ivor Key. \u201cI’ll help rescue Winnie vows Stormin’ Norman.\u201d The Express (London)<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998<\/p>\n

Orin, Deborah, Robert Hardt Jr., and Tracy Connor. \u201cMuch Ado About Pooh: Washington gets into the act.\u201d New York Post<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998: n. pag.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Pooh, A Tempest in Winnie’s Honey Pot.\u201d International Herald Tribune (Paris)<\/em> 6 Feb. 1998: n. pag.<\/p>\n

Parker, Dorothy. \u201cReading and Writing: Far From Well.\u201d The New Yorker<\/em> (1928): 98.<\/p>\n

Sibley, Brian. Three Cheers for Pooh: The Best Bear in All the World<\/i>. Dutton Children\u2019s Books: New York, 2001.<\/p>\n

Thwaite, Ann. A.A. Milne: The Man Behind Winnie-the-Pooh. Random House: New York, 1990.<\/p>\n

White, T.H. Letters to a Friend<\/em>. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is one of a series of posts in which we are sharing stories from our upcoming book that were cut from the original manuscript.] Betsy here and I know Pooh.\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Better rephrase that.\u00a0 To be a bit more specific I know Winnie-the-Pooh.\u00a0 Having worked with The Children’s Center …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}