Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) was the son of a Scottish schoolmaster. Milne won a scholarship to Westminster School and later read mathematics at Cambridge. His real interest was in lighthearted writing; he edited the undergraduate magazine Granta and at twenty-four he became assistant editor of Punch. After serving as a signals officer in World War I he won additional acclaim as a playwright. His great success, however, came as a writer of children's literature after publishing a series of verses about his young son Christopher Robin (When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six). Following the acclaim received for the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Milne published several novels as well as an autobiography, It's Too Late Now (1939).
