The Brilliant Career of Winnie The Pooh: The Story of A.A. Milne and His Writing for Children

by Ann Thwaite

Discusses A.A. Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh, with old photographs, illustrations, and original interviews, reviews, and articles

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 1992

About the author

Ann Thwaite is a British writer who is the author of five major biographies. AA Milne: His Life was the Whitbread Biography of the Year, 1990. Edmund Gosse: A Literary Landscape (Duff Cooper Prize, 1985) was described by John Carey as "magnificent - one of the finest literary biographies of our time". Glimpses of the Wonderful about the life of Edmund Gosse's father, Philip Henry Gosse, was picked out by D.J. Taylor in The Independent as one of the "Ten Best Biographies" ever. Her biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett was originally published as Waiting for the Party (1974) and reissued in 2020 with the title Beyond the Secret Garden, with a foreword by Jacqueline Wilson. Emily Tennyson, The Poet's Wife (1996) was reissued by Faber Finds for the Tennyson bicentenary in 2009.

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book. Lots of illustrations and photos including photos of letters written by AA Milne as well as an interview by Enid Blyton, the history behind the book and about his child and adult life. There is a (auto?) biography but apparently he didn't mention winnie the pooh much as he didn't want to be remembered mostly for that... He was also a columnist. I didn't get to read the whole book as it is rather big (A4 and quite long). Some of the pictures where there is print and writing is a bit difficult to make out what it says.

[Russell James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far more accessible than Thwaite's other bio of Milne (500 pages and a bit of a slog, as even she admits). This spin-off is packed with pictures of the ephemera and scraps she came across in writing the bigger book - and is fascinating. Small is beautiful here - and it's not THAT small.

[Trish Goodgame · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently I borrowed this from the library in 2016 but I don't remember it at all! Giving 3 stars just for the sake of argument and fairness!

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of illustrations, quotations, excerpts, and biographical information. After reading Sibley's book, I realized Thwaite could've explained some of the photos and documents in captions more often. I'm glad Sibley had captions on all the photos not discussed in the text.

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gift from Aunt Boo.

Pretty interesting. I especially liked the history of the Latin translation of Winnie-the-Pooh.