First Plays

A. A. Milne

Aug 2021 · Phoemixx Classics Ebooks

About this ebook

First Plays A. A. Milne - Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London on January 18th, 1882. He was a pupil at Westminster School and then Trinity College, Cambridge where he graduated with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903. Whilst there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. Coming to the attention of Punch Magazine he contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays which led to him becoming not only a valued contributor but later an assistant editor. During the early part of the 20th century Milne was very prolific keeping up his numerous article writing as well as 18 plays and 3 novels. In 1920 he, and his wife of seven years, Dorothy, thought they were expecting a baby girl. When the baby was born a boy, he was named Christopher Robin Milne. In 1925, the Milnes bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex, and on Christmas Eve that year Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News in a story called "The Wrong Sort Of Bees". A book, Winnie-the-Pooh, was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All three books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milnes life was so much more than Winnie-the-Pooh but his legacy is overshadowed by the world-wide success of that not so bright bear. We hope that by reading this work you too will agree.

About the author

Alan Alexander Milne (pronounced /mln/) 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 (née 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 188990. 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 Sélincourt 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".