4 volumes. Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. Original gilt decorated cloth, dust jackets. First Editions (When We Were Very Young is the second state, with page 'ix' numbered).
Advertisement for the 1929 Christopher Robin calendar and 'When We Were Very Young' notepaper laid into The House at Pooh Corner. Inspired by stories made up to tell to his son, Christopher Robin Milne, the ‘Winnie the Pooh Books’ quickly established themselves amongst the cornerstones of children’s literature. Having been asked to provide some space fillers for Punch, these semi-fictitious accounts of his son’s doings were transformed to verse and augmented and printed under the running title When We Were Very Young. After a few appearances, the verses were expanded to fill a full page and an illustrator, Punch’s political cartoonist, E.H.Shepard was found. When Milne had what he felt to be enough verses to fill a small book, he approached his publisher, Methuen, who agreed with a reticence shown by the publication of only 5175 copies of the first edition. Success was instant and by the end of the year 43,000 copies of the book had been sold. Despite the success of his first book, it was with Milne’s second book, a continuation but this time in prose, and the formal introduction of the eponymous character, Winnie the Pooh (who appeared in essence in When We Were Very Young, but under the title of Edward Bear), that guaranteed Milne’s immortality as a children’s author. The tales of Pooh, Piglet and friends have been produced in 25 languages and sold 70 million copes since first publication, a figure that is still increasing at a rate of 500,000 copies a year.