When we were very young

Like most people of my generation, my early book memories include the stories and illustrations of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. They were also, inevitably, amongst my children's favourites, probably because of their mother's love for the books and for our regular playing of 'Poohsticks' at the Balancing Pond in Sandhurst where they grew up.

Reproduced from The Work of E.H. Shepard (see below)

However, it is my love and collection of children's illustration that caused me to book tickets for the recent exhibition at the V&A, Winnie the Pooh: Exploring a Classic. Sadly I was not well enough to go to what was apparently a brilliantly curated exhibition for adults and children alike so, not to miss out completely, I decided to set upon my own research.

I knew I had, somewhere on my library shelves, an old book on E.H. Shepard, bought as a present by a sister who finds all sorts of gems for me in her local secondhand book shop. (The Work of E.H. Shepard, edited by Rawle Knox, published by Methuen Children's Books 1979). On rifling further, I discovered a number of other books, though surprisingly, and I really must rectify this, no copy of Winnie the Pooh itself. A very pleasant day or so has been occupied researching for and writing this blog post so I hope you enjoy it.

Rawle Knox was, in fact, E.H.Shepard's step-grandson and his sister, Penelope Fitzgerald of authorial fame, Shepard's step-granddaughter. He refers affectionately to Shepard as 'Kipper' the name used by all who knew him well for most of his life. Shepard was born in 1879 and showed obvious artistic talent from a very young age, gaining a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in 1897. He was an admirer of the illustrator Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland) because of his relentless imagination. His ambition was to work for Punch, the most popular periodical of the day, and this was eventually realised in 1907. His first steady work came from the publisher Thomas Nelson and included illustrations for David Copperfield, Tom Brown's Schooldays and Aesop's Fables, amongst others. His first collaboration with A.A. Milne was for When We Were Very Young in 1924 and I reproduce here (from my Magnet edition, 1986), one of my favourites of these wonderful poems for young children.

For the rest of the 1920's, commissions came in thick and fast and in 1926 Shepard illustrated Winnie the Pooh which was an instant success. Milne and Shepard were not close. Shepard had appropriated Christopher Robin's toy companions and made them his own creations but he understood Christopher Robin's (or Billy Moon as he called himself) loneliness as his own father did not.

I here digress slightly to recommend the beautiful film based on this true story: Goodbye Christopher Robin directed by Simon Curtis from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce (an excellent children's author). The film gives a rare glimpse into the relationship between A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin, played brilliantly by Will Tilston (PG 2017).

The other well-known children's book for which Shepard is known is Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame published in 1931. It is interesting that amongst a huge body of work, it is Shepard's animal characters for which he is best remembered. He is of course the link between Grahame and Milne, who wrote the play Toad of Toad Hall from Grahame's Wind in the Willows.

Reproduced from The Work of E.H. Shepard (see above).

Shepard continued to be a cartoonist for Punch until he was sacked in 1952 but this was rather a relief and he continued to have a very successful career as an artist and, latterly, as an author, until the end of his life. Despite the 'Disneyfication' of Winnie the Pooh, Shepard's drawings are still the definitive 'Pooh'. In 1968 Shepard's illustration of 'Pooh and friends al fresco' sold at Sotheby's for the huge, unprecedented for a living illustrator, sum of £1200. In 1972, 71 years after he had first exhibited at the Royal Academy, Ernest Howard Shepard was awarded an OBE.

Shepard's place in the history of English illustration is as the end of a tradition, not the beginning of one. He is known as the last of the Victorian 'black and white men' but I suspect to younger fans of Winnie the Pooh and friends is hardly known at all.