The Four Pooh Books: When We Were Very Young; Winnie-The-Pooh; Now We Are Six; The House At Pooh Corner.

MILNE, A.A.; Illustrated by Ernest Shepard.

$14,000.00

Item Number: 146840

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1924-1928.

First editions, first issues of each work in Milne’s wonderful Pooh quartet, with only When We Were Very Young being a first issue. Octavo, four volumes, original publisher’s gilt-decorated pictorial cloth, top edge gilt, pictorial endpapers, illustrated with decorations by Ernest Shepard. When We Were Very Young is a first issue with page ix unnumbered, jacket with light toning to spine and a few losses to the extremities. Winnie-The-Pooh, cartographic endpapers, all edges gilt sunning to the spine, ownership ticket to the half-title page, jacket evenly toned with chipping to extremities with a closed tear to the rear hinge. Now We Are Six, pictorial endpapers with a neat ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, jacket with dampstaining to the rear panel and small portions of loss to the crown and foot of the spine. The House at Pooh Corner, pictorial endpapers, jacket with a few small closed tears to the top edge. Each volume is near fine to near fine in a very good dust jacket. An attractive and clean set of Milne’s classic series, rare and desirable in the first state.

“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).