Now We Are Six.

MILNE, A. A. Decorations by Ernest Shepard.

$700.00

Item Number: 143951

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1927.

First edition of the third book in Milne’s beloved Pooh series. Octavo, original publisher’s cloth with gilt decorations to the spine and front panel, pictorial endpapers, top edge gilt, illustrated with decorations by Ernest Shepard. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Gift inscription to the front free endpaper.

“Although Alan Alexander Milne wrote novels, short stories, poetry and many plays for adults, in addition to his work as assistant editor for Punch from 1906 to 1914, it is his writings for children that have captured the hearts of millions of people worldwide and granted Milne everlasting fame” (Silvey, 461). Milne wrote most of these poems at the request of friend and fellow poet Rose Fyleman, who was planning a new children’s magazine. “On a rain-blighted holiday in Wales, [Milne] escaped from the crowd of fellow guests to the summerhouse, and for 11 days wrote a set of children’s verses, one each day… ‘There on the other side of the lawn was a child with whom I had lived for three years [his son, Christopher Robin]… and here within me were unforgettable memories of my own childhood.’ He added more verses when he got home, enough for a book, and allowed some to be published in advance in Punch” (Carpenter & Prichard, 351). Shepard, a Punch staff artist at the time, provided delightful line vignettes, resulting in “a wonderful marriage of verse and vision. His delicately precise and fresh drawings had an instant appeal” (DNB).