Winnie-the-Pooh (book) - Adaptations

Adaptations

The book Winnie-the-Pooh is the second in a series of books published in the 1920s about Winnie the Pooh and friends. These books were themselves adapted from a collection of stories penned by Milne and originally published in Punch Magazine, St. Nicholas Magazine, Vanity Fair and others, prior to publication in book form. A variety of famous illustrators were hired by the magazines to decorate Milne's text including J. H. Dowd, Reginald Birch, E. H. Shepard, A. H. Watson and others. According to a 1998 article published in the Queens Quarterly (105/4), by Ross Kilpatrick entitled "Winnie the Pooh and the Canadian Connection," the first chapter of Milne's book entitled "Winnie-the-Pooh", was adapted by Milne from "Teddy Bear's Bee Tree," by Canadian author Charles G. D. Roberts. Following Disney's licensing of certain rights to Pooh from Stephen Slesinger and the A.A. Milne Estate in the 1960s, the Milne story lines were used by Disney in its cartoon featurette Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. The "look" of Pooh was adapted by Disney from Stephen Slesinger's distinctive American Pooh with his famous red shirt that had been created and used in commerce by Slesinger since the 1930s.