He Discovered Rare Winnie The Pooh Drawings As He Was Cleaning His Dad’s Attic Out
While cleaning out his late father’s attic, Simon Smith stumbled upon a plastic bag filled with papers. When he opened the bag, he found manuscripts, letters, poems, and drawings that had belonged to A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh.
According to Will Farmer, the director of Fieldings Auctioneers, the rare documents have been sold for more than $118,000.
The papers were discovered in the home of Leslie Smith. He had worked in publishing and lived in Malvern, a town located in Worcestershire, England.
His son, Simon, was sorting through his possessions after he died in November 2023. That was when he came across the original Winnie-the-Pooh drawings and manuscripts.
There were also sketches for The Christopher Robin Birthday Book, first drafts of Milne’s poem “Wind on the Hill,” and corrected proofs of Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner.
Additionally, Simon uncovered letters between Milne, illustrator E.H. Shepherd, and publisher Frederick Muller that had never been seen before.
In one letter from March 28, 1928, Milne defended his honey-loving bear, writing: “By the way, Pooh protests strongly against being called a ‘fabulous monster’ in today’s Observer.”
Milne expressed his frustrations with Shepherd’s illustrations in other letters. He wrote, “[He] must do new drawings for April and September as the originals are very poor.”
Simon even found correspondence from the English children’s author, Enid Blyton, and postcards from J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, addressed to his father.
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Leslie Smith had founded a publishing company called Cressrelles, which took over the publishing company run by Muller’s family. That was how he got ahold of all these papers.
Simon was awestruck by the rare trove of materials, but he didn’t think it made sense for the Smith family to keep them. He brought the treasures to Fieldings Auctioneers. The papers were then divided into 34 lots for the auction.
“There’s four of us [children] and plenty of grandchildren and lots of great-grandchildren, so where would they go in the family? We would like to see them somewhere useful,” Simon said.
Milne was born in London in 1882. He was an author, editor, essayist, and playwright. He moved his family to a farm in the English countryside after serving in World War I.
There, Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, explored the forest nearby, along with many of Christopher Robin’s favorite stuffed animals.
The father and son also visited the London Zoo, where they saw a black bear named Winnie. Christopher Robin renamed his stuffed bear after the zoo animal. The experience was how Milne got his inspiration for his iconic teddy bear character.
His first Winnie-the-Pooh tale was published in December 1925. A century later, the books, movies, TV shows, and merchandise that followed are still popular today.
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