A bear with a taste for honey: Winnie the Pooh turns 100

The world's most famous bear is turning 100. Winnie the Pooh is being celebrated at the New York Public Library in an exhibition going over his long history. The display contains initial first edition printings of the Winnie the Pooh books. It contains maquettes or publisher's mock-ups of the books showing the works in progress as author A.A. Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard worked to achieve the proper balance of illustration and text. Pooh's story starts in 1914, when veterinarian soldier Harry Colburn rescued a baby bear and named her Winnie, after his hometown Winnipeg. Winnie accompanied Colburn to England, and when he was deployed to the front, he left her in the keeping of the London Zoo. It was there that Winnie made another friend, the son of English author Alan Alexander Milne, Christopher Robin. The young boy liked Winnie so much, he named his toy bear after her. A.A. Milne, inspired by this cuddly toy, started writing adventure stories for his son. They were later first published in the London paper in 1925 with illustrations by E.H. Shepard. The first Winnie the Pooh book was published in 1926. It was one of the first books to get a really major marketing, spin-off, merchandising industry behind it. In the 1960s, of course, it was adopted and very much boosted by Disney, albeit in a somewhat Disney-fied form. A simple hello would do. Thank you very much. Winnie the Pooh continues to win over hearts around the world and after 100 years, it is clear that we will be friends with Winnie forever.