A. A. Milne is one of the most successful English writers ever. His heart-warming creations - Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet - have become some of the best-loved children's characters of all time, and readers the world over are familiar with the stories from the Hundred Acre Wood. Yet the man himself has remained an enigma. Although in many ways his behaviour was that of a typical golf-playing, pipe-smoking Englishman, Milne refused to be typecast, and his publishers despaired when he turned from writing popular columns for Punch to detective stories.

They complained again when the detective writer presented them with a set of children's verse, but when When We Were Very Young became one of the best-selling books of all time, Milne's credibility as one of the world's favourite authors was sealed. And yet, for his son Christopher Robin, the success of his father was to be an almost intolerable burden. In this prize-winning classic biography, Ann Thwaite reveals the man behind Pooh in all his complexity, including his experiences at the Somme in 1916 and his relationship with literary giants H. G. Wells, P. G. Wodehouse and J. M. Barrie. She constructs a vivid and poignant portrayal of the inscrutable man and his stories, which earned so much devotion among readers that, eighty years after their creation, this portrait of their creator remains a must for followers of Pooh - whatever their age.