Winnie-the-Pooh. With Decorations by Ernest H. Shepard. by Milne, A.A.; Decorations by Ernest H. Shephard - 1926

London: Methuen and Co, 1926. Deluxe issue in the publisher's full olive morocco, signed by A.A. Milne. Octavo, gilt titles to the spine, elaborately decorated in gilt, all edges gilt, silk marker, pictorial endpapers and line drawings by Ernest H. Shepard. Signed by A.A. Milne on the title page. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh has been considered a classic of children's literature almost since its publication" (Cooper & Cooper). In 1925, A.A. Milne purchased "a Sussex farmhouse for use as a weekend and holiday alternative to the family's London home... [that would] provide the setting for the stories he now started to write about [his son] Christopher's toys... Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner [its companion volume, published 1928] are, on their own terms, more successful as works written for children than anything else produced during children's literature's Golden Age" (Carpenter). "Ernest H. Shepard's illustrations, modeled after the actual toys, show character and movement in simple line vignettes, which add so much to the books that most people consider them to be inseparable from the texts" (Silvey).