Now We Are Six

By A. A. Milne

Now We Are Six is an enchanting collection of stories in verse about Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh. This treasured classic includes some of the most beloved poems for children, lines full of light, laughter and playfulness. Most famous of these stories in verse are "King John's Christmas", "Binker" and "Pinkle Purr". The book is presented with an endearing introduction by the author speaking in his six year old voice and reflecting on the subjects of the early childhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharp Ink
• Release date: Sep 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9788028316037

A. A. Milne

A.A. Milne (1882-1956) was an English writer. Born in London, Milne was educated at an independent school run by his father. Milne went on to Trinity College, London, where he earned a B.A. in Mathematics while editing and writing for the student magazine Granta. Upon graduating in 1903, Milne worked as a contributor and assistant editor for Punch, Britain’s leading humor magazine, while playing amateur cricket. He served in the British Army in the Great War as an officer and was injured at the Battle of the Somme in July of 1916, which led to his work as a propaganda writer for Military Intelligence before his discharge in 1919. Having married in 1913, Milne and his wife Dorothy de Sélincourt welcomed their son Christopher Robin Milne into the world in 1920. Around this time, Milne worked as a screenwriter for the British film industry while continuing to publish in Punch, where his poem “Teddy Bear” appeared in 1924. Marking the first appearance of his character Pooh, this launched Milne’s career as a successful children’s author. Winnie-the Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) were immediate bestsellers for Milne and continue to be read, cherished, and adapted today. Following this success, disturbed by the fame surrounding his son Christopher Robin, who figured as a character in his Pooh stories, Milne turned to writing adult fiction and plays, including Toad of Toad Hall (1929), an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s beloved novel The Wind in the Willows (1908).

Book preview

A. A. Milne

Now We Are Six

Sharp Ink Publishing

2023

Contact: [e-mail]

ISBN 978-80-283-1603-7

Table of Contents

Introduction

Solitude

King John’s Christmas

Busy

Sneezles

Binker

Cherry Stones

The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak

Buttercup Days

The Charcoal-Burner

Us Two

The Old Sailor

The Engineer

Journey's End

Furry Bear

Forgiven

The Employer’s Rhyme

Knight-in-Armour

Come Out with Me

Down by the Pond

The Little Black Hen

The Friend

The Good Little Girl

A Thought

King Hilary and the Beggarman

Swing Song

Explained

Twice Times

The Morning Walk

Cradle Song

Waiting at the Window

Pinkle Purr

Wind on the Hill

Forgotten

In the Dark

The End

Introduction

Table of Contents

When you are reciting poetry, which is a thing we never do, you find sometimes, just as you are beginning, that Uncle John is still telling Aunt Rose that if he can’t find his spectacles he won’t be able to hear properly, and does she know where they are; and by the time everybody has stopped looking for them, you are at the last verse, and in another minute they will be saying, Thank-you, thank-you, without really knowing what it was all about. So, next time, you are more careful; and, just before you begin you say, Er-h’r’m! very loudly, which means, Now then, here we are; and everybody stops talking and looks at you: which is what you want. So then you get in the way of saying it whenever you are asked to recite . . , and sometimes it is just as well, and sometimes it isn't. . . . And by and by you find yourself saying it without thinking. Well, this bit which I am writing now, called Introduction, is really the er-h’r’m, of the book, and I have put it in, partly so as not to take you by surprise, and partly because I can’t do without it now. There are some very clever writers who say that it is quite easy not to have an er-h’r’m, but I don’t agree with them. I think it is much easier not to have all the rest of the book.

What I want to explain in the Introduction is this. We have been nearly three years writing this book. We began it when we were very young . . . and now we are six. So, of course, bits of it seem rather babyish to us, almost as if they had slipped out of some other book by mistake. On page whatever-it-is there is a thing which is simply three-ish, and when we read it to ourselves just now we said, Well, well, well, and turned over rather quickly. So we want you to know that the name of the book doesn’t mean that this is us being six all the time,