Winnie-the-Pooh

First Edition 1926, Methuen & Co. Ltd., London.  With dust jacket. Octavo, 7.5” x 5”, xi, 158, [1] pp. Green cloth boards with gilt border, and illustrations to front and gilt titles to spine.  Illustrated by Shepherd throughout ,  with illustrated pastedowns - “Drawn by Me and Mr. Shepard Helpd”. Top edge gilt. Buff dust jacket with black illustrated front and titles and spine; illustrated rear. This is the second of the four Pooh books.

Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch magazine in February 1924, and in book form in When We Were Very Young, also in 1924. The Pooh books are about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. The stuffed bear, originally named "Edward", was renamed "Winnie-the-Pooh" after a Canadian bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The Pooh" comes from a swan called "Pooh". 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. A. Milne's stories, and two more characters – Rabbit and Owl – were created by Milne's imagination.

The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England, where the Pooh stories were set. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest at Cotchford Farm, and took his son walking there. E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books. The adult Christopher Robin commented: "Pooh's Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical".

Condition: Book has slight rubbing to spine tips and mild offset to pastedowns from the dust jacket, and is in better than very good condition. The dust jacket has small stains here and there, and chips to the spine tips and corners.