“Unveiling Childhood Secrets: British Man Stumbles Upon Hidden Treasure of Original ‘Winnie-The-Pooh’ Artifacts in Father’s Attic”
So, how did these papers end up in Leslie Smith’s attic?
Simon Smith Discovers A Rare ‘Winnie-The-Pooh’ Collection In His Father’s Attic
Last year, Simon Smith was cleaning out his late father’s attic in Malvern, England, when he discovered a plastic bag full of papers.
“We were just clearing out the attic and found a plastic carrier bag full of letters,” Smith explained to the BBC. “We started going through them and found many signatures we couldn’t even decipher — and then we found the A.A. Milne. We were a bit gobsmacked, to say the least.”
Fieldings AuctioneersCover art for The Christopher Robin Birthday Book.
On Dec. 24, 1925, Winnie-the-Pooh made his debut in A.A. Milne’s “The Wrong Sort of Bees,” a story published in the London Evening News. The lovable characters were an instant hit, and the children’s series ultimately became a multi-million dollar media franchise that would later be purchased by Disney.
Smith’s collection dated back to the early days of Winnie-the-Pooh and contained original manuscripts, poems, illustrations, and letters between A.A. Milne and his illustrator, E.H. Shepard.
“The collection includes design ideas for individual Christmas cards from characters including Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore,” wrote Fieldings Auctioneers, the auction house that recently sold the papers. The trove also included “a stream of planning letters and original mock ups of Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner, but most excitingly are the original penned mock ups for Christopher Robin’s Birthday Book, including a sensational and heart-warming original pen and ink drawing of Pooh and Piglet walking side by side in the snow.”
