Milne works. Milne Alan Alexander: biography, career, personal life

Alan Alexander Milne was born in London on January 18, 1882. The boy was lucky with his parents; they were well-educated and well-mannered people.

Alan's father had his own private school, and it was there that the future writer went. What is noteworthy is that one of the teachers there was Herbert Wells, a world famous writer.

The family was very fond of creativity and art and strongly encouraged the development of children in this area. Already from early years Milne wrote poetry, and during his student years he and his brother wrote articles for the university newspaper Grant.

After leaving school, Alan entered Westminster School, and then to Cambridge to study mathematics. Despite his creative inclinations, the young man had quite good success in the exact sciences.

After writing notes and newspaper articles for a student publication, Milne was noticed and invited to London to work for the famous humor magazine Punch. It was a real success, especially for such a young journalist.

Personal life

Milne's future wife noticed the young man during his student years. In 1913, Alan Milne and Dorothy de Selincourt were married. The newlyweds were forced to separate a year after the wedding. The First World War began and Milne volunteered to go to the front as an officer in the British Army. He took little part in the war effort; for the most part Milne worked in the propaganda department.

After some time, he wrote the book “Peace with Honor,” where he directly condemned the war and everything connected with it.

In 1920, the couple had a son, Christopher Robin. And in 1925, Milne bought a house in Hartfield and moved his family there.

Alan Milne lived quite a long and successful life. The writer died in 1956 from a serious brain disease.

Literary activity

Milne's first serious literary success was the stories he wrote during the war. The author gained popularity and began to be called one of the most successful playwrights in England.

But, undoubtedly, the cheerful klutz bear nicknamed Winnie the Pooh brought worldwide fame to the writer. As Milne later stated, he did not specifically conceive the fairy tale, but simply transferred funny stories about his son’s toys to paper.

Christopher was given toys, and his father, a writer, before bed, instead of reading fairy tales, invented and told his son stories about the funny adventures of his toy friends.

In addition, the family often staged children's plays featuring Christopher's toys. That's exactly how I was born good fairy tale about the adventures of Winnie, who was recognized and loved by children all over the world.

What’s noteworthy is that fairy-tale characters appeared in the book exactly in the order in which their prototype toys appeared in the life of Milne’s son. And the forest in which the heroes lived was very reminiscent of the forest in which the Milne family loved to walk.

The first chapters of the book about the adventures of a funny little bear were published in a newspaper in 1924. Readers were delighted with the tale and began to ask for a continuation of the story. And in 1926, the first book about Winnie the Pooh and his friends was published.

After the book was published, Alan Milne fell into crazy fame. The fairy tale was translated into many languages, it was constantly republished and filmed.

Walt Disney made a full-length cartoon about the cheerful bear Winnie.

In Russia, Soyuzmultfilm also released its own version of this tale. The audience loved the cartoon, and it became a classic of the children's genre.

However, Alan Milne himself suffered greatly from this work. The fairy tale story literally closed the writer’s path to the world of serious literature, and all his subsequent works had neither success nor recognition from literary critics.

Almost all of Milne's stories, poems and plays were forgotten, unable to withstand competition with children's fairy tales. Although the author himself did not consider himself a children's writer.

What is noteworthy is that Milne’s son also suffered from this beloved fairy tale. As a child, the boy was fairly bullied by his peers and did not allow him to live in peace.

Despite this, Alan Milne has forever entered the golden fund of literature and to this day, parents read stories to their children about a funny little bear and his friends.

Alan Alexander Milne is a prose writer, poet, playwright, classic of English literature of the twentieth century, author of the famous “Winnie the Pooh”.

Milne was born in the London district of Kilburn on January 18, 1882. Scots by origin, Alan Alexander Milne spent his childhood in London, where his father John Vine Milne owned a small private school. His early education was largely determined by the influence of his youth teacher H.G. Wells - much later Milne wrote about Wells as “a great writer and a great friend.” He continued his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He subsequently donated the original handwritten copy of his book Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Edge to the College Library. As a student at Cambridge, where he studied mathematics from 1900 to 1903, he wrote notes for the student newspaper Grant, and his first literary efforts were published in the humorous magazine Punch. At the age of 24, Milne began working for Punch as an assistant editor until the outbreak of the First World War, in which he took part.

In 1913 Alan Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincote, and from this marriage one son was born, Christopher Robin Milne. A born pacifist, Milne was drafted into the Royal Army and served in France. The war made a strong impression on the young writer. She became the reason why Milne, who was not particularly interested in politics, thought about what was happening in the world. His famous anti-war work, An Honorable Peace, was published in 1934. The book found a huge response in the interwar times, and in 1924 Maffin published Milne's famous When We Were Young stories, some of which had previously appeared in Punch and were well known to regular readers of the magazine.

In 1926, the first version of Winnie the Pooh appeared. The idea of ​​writing this book was suggested to Milne by his wife and little Christopher. The history of the creation of the fairy tale is full of mysteries and contradictions, but the most important thing is that it has become one of the most popular children's books. The second part of the stories “Now there are six of us” appeared in 1927 and, finally, the final part of the book “The House on the Pooh Edge” was published in 1928. It seemed to Milne that he had written something like a well-selling detective story, because his book immediately earned two and a half thousand pounds. Even after the dizzying success of Winnie the Pooh, Milne remained in doubt about his literary talent. He wrote: “All I wanted was to run away from this fame, as I used to want to run away from Punch, as I always wanted to run away... However...”
In 1922, he did write a detective novel, The Mystery of the Red House, which was published only in 1939, along with 25 other plays, short stories and Milne's autobiography, Too Late. Milne always acknowledged and repeatedly gratefully emphasized the decisive role of his wife Dorothy and his son Christopher in the writing and the very fact of the appearance of Winnie the Pooh. Books about Pooh Bear have been translated into 25 languages ​​and have taken their place in the hearts and on the shelves of millions of readers.

The first chapter of Pooh, "in which we first meet Winnie the Pooh and the bees", was first published in a London evening newspaper on December 24, 1925, and broadcast on BBC radio on Christmas Day by Donald Calfrop. The irony is that Milne was convinced that he wrote neither children's prose nor children's poetry. He spoke to the child inside each of us. He never read his Pooh stories to his son, preferring to raise Christopher on the works of his favorite writer, Wodehouse. Wodehouse subsequently returned the compliment to Milne, saying that "Milne is his favorite children's writer."
Wodehouse's books continued to live in Milne's house after his death. Christopher Robin read these books to his daughter Claire, whose bookshelves in her room were literally bursting with books by this writer. Christopher wrote to his friend Peter (an actor): “My father understood nothing about the specifics of the book market, knew nothing about the specifics of sales, he never wrote books for children. He knew about me, he knew about himself and about the Garrick Club - and he simply did not pay attention to everything else... Except, perhaps, life itself.” Christopher Robin first read the poems and stories about Winnie the Pooh 60 years after they first appeared, when he heard Peter's recordings on record.
The adventures of Winnie the Bear are loved by both adults and children. A 1996 sociological survey conducted by English radio showed that this book took 17th place in the list of the most striking and significant works published in the twentieth century. Worldwide sales of Winnie the Pooh from 1924 to 1956 exceeded 7 million. As you know, when sales exceed a million, publishers stop counting them.
In 1960, Winnie the Pooh was brilliantly translated into Russian by Boris Zakhoder. Anyone who speaks Russian and English languages, can attest that the translation was done with exquisite precision and ingenious ingenuity. In general, Vinnie has been translated into all European and almost all world languages.
In addition to the world famous Winnie the Pooh, Alan Milne is known as a playwright and short story writer. His plays were successfully performed on the professional stage of London, but are now staged mainly in amateur theaters, although they still attract full houses and arouse the interest of the public and the press.
In 1952 Milne became seriously ill. He had to undergo severe brain surgery. The operation was a success and Milne returned to his home in Sussex, where he spent the rest of his life reading. After a long illness, he died on January 31, 1956.
Shortly after the release of Winnie the Pooh, Milne wrote in The Nation: “I think that each of us secretly dreams of immortality... In the sense that his name will outlive the body and will live in this world, despite the fact that he himself a person has passed on to another world.” When Milne died, no one doubted that he had discovered the secret of immortality. And this is not 15 minutes of fame, this is real immortality, which, contrary to his own expectations, was brought to him not by plays and short stories, but by a little bear cub with sawdust in his head. In 1996, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold in London at an auction organized by the house of Bonham to an unknown buyer for £4,600.

Note:
The third photo is the famous photograph by Howard Coster, which depicts Alan Milne with his son Christopher Robin (who became the prototype for Christopher Robin from the Pooh stories) and Edward the bear (who inspired Milne to create Winnie the Pooh). Sepia, matte print, 1926. The original is kept in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Works

Milne was well known as Punch's feuilletonist, and collections of his essays were regularly republished. Milne's plays were popular and critical successes, according to E. Twight (English)Russian, for a short time Milne was "one of the most successful, prolific and well-known playwrights in England". However, the success of his children's books eclipsed all other achievements, and, much to Milne's own displeasure, he began to be considered a children's writer. According to P. Connolly Paula T. Connolly), Milne's works for children turned out to be similar to Frankenstein - the creation took possession of the creator: the public demanded new books in this genre, and critics considered Milne's other works in the context of his children's books. When the writer returned to novels in the 1930s and 1940s, readers ignored him, and critics used the reference to children's books to jab him. Milne himself complained that critics who begin a review by mentioning Winnie the Pooh, at the same time they inevitably criticize new works, an attitude towards which they had formed even before reading. By the end of his life, Milne's children's books had sold 7 million copies, and his books for adults were no longer in print.

Winnie the Pooh

• Winnie the Pooh (English) Winnie-the-Pooh)
• House on Poohovaya Edge (English) The House at Pooh Corner)

Translated into Russian - without two chapters of the original - under the general title “Winnie the Pooh and all-all-all” by Boris Zakhoder.

Fairy tales

• Prince Rabbit
• An ordinary fairy tale
• Once upon a time...
• The Ballad of the Royal Sandwich

Stories

• Truth is in wine (In vino veritas)
• Christmas story
• Amazing story
• Mr. Findlater's Dreams
• Christmas grandfather
• Before the flood
• Exactly at eleven
• Portrait of Lydia
• The Rise and Fall of Mortimer Scrivens
• Midsummer (June 24)
• A word about autumn
• I don't like blackmailers
• Stories of happy destinies

Novels

• Lovers in London Lovers in London, 1905)
• Once upon a time, a long time ago... Once on a Time, 1917)
• Mister Pym Mr. Pim, 1921)
• The Mystery of the Red House The Red House Mystery, 1922)
• Two (English) Two People, 1931)
• A very short-lived sensation Four Days" Wonder, 1933)
• Too late (English) It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer , 1939)
• Chloe Marr (ur. Chloe Marr, 1946)

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Notes

Literature

• Connolly, Paula T. Winnie-The-Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner: Recovering Arcadia. - Twayne Publishers, 1994. - ISBN 0-8057-8810-7.

Links

• in the library of Maxim Moshkov

A passage characterizing Milne, Alan Alexander

(1882-1956) English writer

Millions of children and adults all over the world are familiar with a cute bear named Winnie the Pooh. A fairy tale about him and his friends - Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Rabbit and others - was written by Alan Alexander Milne. There is another one in the fairy tale main character- this is the little son of the writer Christopher Robin, who became not only a participant in this amazing fairy tale, but, strange as it may seem, one of its authors. And Winnie the Pooh was involved in the history of creating a fairy tale about himself and his friends. After all, this already pretty shabby teddy bear was the most favorite toy of the little boy Christopher Robin, who did not part with it throughout his childhood.

So Winnie the Pooh became a member of the Milne family and the main actor fairy tales In the end, he became so famous that he eclipsed the fame of even his creator, who is now known only because he came up with the fairy tale about Winnie the Pooh.

Alan Alexander Milne really did not create anything more significant, despite the fact that he had other works.

He came from a family that was as proud of its ancestry as aristocrats are proud of their noble origins. All members of this family were quite extraordinary people, although they were not distinguished by their birth. Milne's great-grandfather was a mason and his grandfather a Presbyterian minister. He worked as a missionary in Jamaica, then returned to England and founded thirteen schools there,

after which he began to preach again. During his life, he never managed to save even the slightest decent amount to help his son get out into the world. He generously distributed everything he earned to poor people.

The writer's father had a hard time. He worked as an accountant at a confectionery factory, as a mechanic's assistant, and then as a teacher's assistant. In the end, he still entered the university, and after graduation he founded his own school. It was very good educational institution. At one time, the future worked there as a teacher. famous writer Herbert Wells. He and Alan Milne's father remained friends all his life. Wells later recalled Milne in his book An Essay on Autobiography.

Milne Sr. tried to give his son Alan Alexander a good education. Alan studied at Westminster School and graduated from the mathematics department of Cambridge University. During his studies, he edited the university magazine Granta and published his own humorous essays there. Literary work Milne liked mathematics more, so after graduating from university he decided to devote himself to literature. However, it was not easy to publish my works in any serious publication. It happened that editors did not even read the manuscripts that Milne delivered to the editorial offices of magazines.

Therefore, he did not believe his own eyes when one day he saw his parody “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” published in the magazine “Vanity Fair”.

And yet, the works of Alan Alexander Milne, although not often, appeared in magazines, and his name became famous. In 1906, he became editor of Punch magazine and thus was able to publish his works freely. Things were finally looking up for him. Milne got married and soon published his humoresques about sports from Punch magazine as a separate book.

During the First World War he served in a reserve signal battalion, then went to the front, but fell ill and was returned to England. For some time Alan Milne was an instructor at a boot camp, then worked in the propaganda department of the War Ministry, from where he was demobilized after the war with the rank of lieutenant.

Even during the war, he began to engage in drama. First he wrote a play for the amateur troupe of the signal battalion, and then began to create plays for professional theaters. After the war, Milne became a famous writer and playwright. His comedies were successful in theaters, and the detective novel “The Mystery of the Red House” was even considered a classic.

In 1920, a son, Christopher, was born into the family of Alan Milne. When the boy was one year old, he was given a teddy bear, who was named Winnie the Pooh. Then Christopher got a toy donkey, Eeyore, and a pig, Piglet. Later this company was supplemented by Kanga and Tiger, and Milne invented Owl and Rabbit for the fairy tale.

Christopher was growing up, and real performances were played out in the nursery, in which all family members took part - father, mother, little son and his toys, which in the fairy tale behaved like living beings.

Alan Alexander Milne began writing children's books for his son. At first it was poetry, and then “Winnie the Pooh” appeared. It turned out like this.

At the very beginning of the twenties, a friend of Alana Milne opened a children's magazine and asked Milne to write several poems for it. The writer refused, but still began to think about what he could write. As a result, the poem “Sonya and the Doctor” and other poems appeared, which were published as a separate book in 1924.

And then Milne remembered all the fairy tales that he had told his son and began to write them down. In 1926, the first book “Winnie the Pooh” was published, which included ten stories about the bear cub and his friends.

In 1927 it appeared new book children's poems by Alan Milne, and in 1928 - the book “The House on Pooh Edge”, which included ten more stories about Winnie the Pooh. Thus, the first book about this wonderful bear cub was published when Christopher was three years old, and the last one when he was already eight years old. In 1925, Milne purchased a large rural house with services and a large forest of 200 hectares - Cochford Farm, where the fairy tale mainly took place.

Alan Alexander Milne wrote other works for his son. He published a collection of “Stories about Christopher Robin”, “A Book to Read about Christopher Robin”, “Birthday Stories about Christopher Robin” and even such an entertaining book as “The Alphabet of Christopher Robin”. In addition to these, he wrote other short children's works.

However, Alan Milne no longer wrote about Winnie the Pooh. He even got angry when they asked him about it, and said: “If a person once wrote about a policeman, they will demand that he write only about policemen all his life.”

Everything was explained by the fact that Christopher grew up and Milne stopped writing fairy tales for him. But for some reason he didn’t want to compose them for other children. But this was the writer’s mistake, because his other works were no longer successful.

In 1938 it suffered a complete failure theatrical production based on Milne's play Sarah Simple. After that, he stopped writing for the theater. Gradually, readers cooled down to the writer’s humorous works, and Punch magazine, where Milne was again invited to work, even refused his services. In 1939, Alan Alexander Milne wrote his autobiography, but, after short-term success, it too was forgotten.

Alan Milne's literary fortunes left him when he was only forty-eight years old. Soon his name began to be mentioned only as the author of Winnie the Pooh. He is still known in this capacity to this day.

“Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All” is a typical family fairy tale, the kind parents usually come up with for their young children. Moreover, it reflected cases and situations that actually happened in the Milne family, only they were acted out by the animated toys of Christopher Robin and himself.

The son of the writer Christopher Milne, to whom one of the most remarkable children's works is dedicated, became a shopkeeper. At first he was engaged in grocery and haberdashery trade, and then opened a bookstore and began to prosper. At the age of 54, he published his own book, “Enchanted Places,” in which he talked about his childhood.

Then he published another book - “The Road Through the Trees”, where he again talked about his life, but as an adult. True, both of these books were not particularly successful and were interesting only because their author was involved in the creation of a wonderful fairy tale about Winnie the Pooh bear and his friends.

Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) - prose writer, poet and playwright, classic of twentieth-century literature, author of the famous "Winnie the Pooh".
English writer, Scottish by birth, Alan Alexander Milne spent his childhood in London. He studied at a small private school, owned by his father, John Milne. One of his teachers in 1889-1890 was Herbert Wells. Then he entered Westminster School, and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where from 1900 to 1903 he studied mathematics. As a student, he wrote notes for the student newspaper Grant. He usually wrote with his brother Kenneth, and they signed the notes with the name AKM. Milne's work was noticed, and the British humor magazine Punch began to collaborate with him, and Milne subsequently became an assistant editor there.
In 1913 Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincourt, goddaughter of magazine editor Owen Seaman (said to be the psychological prototype of Eeyore), and the marriage produced one son, Christopher.
A born pacifist, Milne was drafted into the Royal Army and served in France. He later wrote a book, Peace with Honor, in which he condemned the war.
In 1926, the first version of Little Bear with Sawdust in his Head (in English - Bear-with-very-small-brains) - "Winnie the Pooh" - appeared. The second part of the stories, "Now We Are Six," appeared in 1927, and the final part of the book, "The House on Pooh Edge," appeared in 1928. Milne never read his own Winnie the Pooh stories to his son, Christopher Robin, preferring to raise him on the works of the writer Wodehouse, beloved by Alan himself, and Christopher first read poems and stories about Pooh Bear only 60 years after their first appearance.
Before the publication of the books about Winnie the Pooh, Milne was already a fairly famous playwright, but the success of Winnie the Pooh has acquired such proportions that Milne's other works are now practically unknown. Worldwide sales of Pooh Bear books translated into 25 languages, 1924 to 1956. exceeded 7 million, and by 1996 about 20 million copies had been sold, and only by the publishing house Muffin (this figure does not include publishers in the USA, Canada and non-English-speaking countries). A 1996 poll conducted by English radio showed that the book about Winnie the Pooh was ranked 17th on the list of the most striking and significant works published in the twentieth century. That same year, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold at Bonham's London auction to an unknown buyer for £4,600.
In 1952, Milne underwent brain surgery, after which he spent four years until his death at his estate in Cotchford, Sussex.