When We Were Very Young
A. A. Milne
with the original illustrations by E.H. Shepard, in colour
First published in Great Britain 6 November 1924
by Methuen & Co. Ltd
Published in this edition 2004 by Egmont Books Limited
239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA
Text by A. A. Milne copyright © Trustees of the Pooh Properties
Line illustrations copyright © E. H. Shepard
Colouring of the illustrations by Mark Burgess copyright © 1989 Egmont UK
Egmont Books Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First e-book edition April 2010
ISBN 978 1 4052 55837
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
to
Christopher Robin Milne Or, as he prefers to call himself, Billy Moon this book which owes so much to him is now humbly offered
At one time (but I have changed my mind now) I thought I was going to write a little Note at the top of each of these poems, in the manner of Mr William Wordsworth, who liked to tell his readers where he was staying, and which of his friends he was walking with, and what he was thinking about, when the idea of writing his poem came to him. You will find some lines about a swan here, if you get as far as that, and I should have explained to you in the Note that Christopher Robin, who feeds this swan in the mornings, has given him the name of ‘Pooh’. This is a very fine name for a swan, because, if you call him and he doesn’t come (which is a thing swans are good at), then you can pretend that you were just saying ‘Pooh!’ to show how little you wanted him. Well, I should have told you that there are six cows who come down to Pooh’s lake every afternoon to drink, and of course they say ‘Moo’ as they come. So I thought to myself one fine day, walking with my friend Christopher Robin, ‘Moo rhymes with Pooh! Surely there is a bit of poetry to be got out of that?’ Well, then, I began to think about the swan on his lake; and at first I thought how lucky it was that his name was Pooh; and then I didn’t think about that any more … and the poem came quite differently from what I intended … and all I can say for it now is that, if it hadn’t been for Christopher Robin, I shouldn’t have written it; which, indeed, is all I can say for any of the others. So this is why these verses go about together, because they are all friends of Christopher Robin; and if I left out one because it was not quite like the one before, then I should have to leave out the one before because it was not quite like the next, which would be disappointing for them.
Then there is another thing. You may wonder sometimes who is supposed to be saying the verses. Is it the Author, that strange but uninteresting person, or is it Christopher Robin, or some other boy or girl, or Nurse, or Hoo? If I had followed Mr Wordsworth’s plan, I could have explained this each time; as it is, you will have to decide for yourselves. If you are not quite sure, then it is probably Hoo. I don’t know if you have ever met Hoo, but he is one of those curious children who look four on Monday, and eight on Tuesday, and are really twenty-eight on Saturday; and you never know whether it is the day when he can pronounce his ‘r’s’. He had a great deal to do with these verses. In fact, you might almost say that this book is entirely the unaided work of Christopher Robin, Hoo, and Mr Shepard, who drew the pictures. They have said ‘Thank you’ politely to each other several times, and now they say it to you for taking them into your house. ‘Thank you so much for asking us. We’ve come.’
A.A.M.
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