![]() ![]() When We Were Very Young is not the work of a poet becoming playful, nor of a lover of children expressing his love, nor of a prose-writer knocking together a few jingles for the little ones, it is the work of a light-verse writer taking his job seriously even though he is taking it into the nursery.Īlthough his English-nursery parlance can strike modern readers as a bit twee, Milne’s depiction of childhood is not sentimental. The practice of no form of writing demands such a height of technical perfection as the writing of light verse. Milne took his craft seriously, observing that The bear who would become famous as Winnie-the-Pooh made his first appearance (as Edward Bear) in the poem “Teddy Bear.” Note from dust jacket flap, first edition ![]() ![]() The publishers reprinted the book four times in November and December of 1924. But When We Were Very Young was an immediate bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. When he announced to his editors (at Methuen in London and Dutton in New York) that his next manuscript was a book of children’s poems, they were skeptical. A former editor at Punch magazine, Milne was by 1924 a successful playwright and author of several volumes of essays and poetry for adults. Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) never intended to be a children’s author. ![]()
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