Winnie-the-Pooh is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925. The character is inspired by a stuffed toy that Milne had bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store, and a bear they had viewed at London Zoo.
Pooh in an illustration by E. H. Shepard
Christopher Robin's original Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toys, on display at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. Clockwise from bottom left: Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear ("Winnie-the-Pooh"), Eeyore, and Piglet. Roo was also one of the original toys, but was lost during the 1930s.
Harry Colebourn and Winnie, 1914
Sculpture at London Zoo where A. A. Milne took his son Christopher Robin to see the amiable bear that inspired Milne to write the story.
A Teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, became a popular children's toy and has been celebrated in story, song, and film.
Bear thought to be made by Morris Michtom, early 1900s; donated to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History by Theodore Roosevelt's grandson, Kermit Roosevelt Jr., in 1964
A replica Steiff model 55PB displayed at the Steiff-Museum, Giengen, Germany, 2006; no original examples of the 55PB are known to survive
A 1902 political cartoon in The Washington Post spawned the teddy bear name.
2: Sewing and turning
