This has been driving me up a wall. I grew up on the original Milne books (illustrated by Sheppard):
When We Were Very Young – 1924 (poetry, which first mentions Winnie-the-Pooh)
Winnie the Pooh – 1926
Now we Are Six – 1927 (more children's poetry)
The House at Pooh Corner – published in 1928
It's mostly very cute and gentle, but there's also a fair amount of snark and sarcasm. Returning to it in my late teens, I could see real wisdom in there, but only within the context of the plot and the various characters.
Fast forward to the twenty-first century and I find myself bombarded on Facebook by quotes from the Disney crap:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/...
Not a single one of the "Pooh" quotes is from Milne. The closest one is the one about the River, which was paraphrased (to be fair, only a bit) from The House at Pooh Corner, Chapter 6 "In which Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In" It starts: "By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
All the rest (that aren't attributed, I hope correctly, to Plato or Seneca, etc.) are pure Disney.
Here's another: https://www.mytowntutors.com/...
So I actually invested in all four books on Kindle, for ease of searching.
Of the above 59 quotes, only 14 were from any of the four Milne Pooh books. Another half dozen or a dozen were "close" (paraphrasing). The rest were pure bunkum. I'll share the ones that were correct (and some that were close):
2. “Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.” but it was from House at Pooh Corner, not Winne-the-Pooh; 17. “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” also from House at Pooh Corner ; 20. “Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully. “Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.” “And he has Brain.” “Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.” There was a long silence. “I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”from House at Pooh Corner; 28. “I did know once, only I’ve sort of forgotten.” This one actually from Winnie-the-Pooh, spoken by Christopher Robin; 29. “My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” WTP; 30. “It is hard to be brave, when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” spoken by Piglet in WTP; 36."Bother" multiple times by Pooh throughout both books; 38, “You never can tell with bees.” WTP; 40. “For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.” WTP; 41. “Some have brains, and some haven’t, … and there it is.” WTP; 45. “Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?’
‘Supposing it didn’t,’ said Pooh after careful thought. Piglet was comforted by this.” HPC; 46. “A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.” spoken by Eeyore, quite sarcastically, in WTP; 51. “They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.” Spoken by Eeyore in HPC; 56. "“And I’d say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea:
“There’s nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me.” from When We Were Very Young (book of poetry by Milne)
Here are some of the ones that were "close" (I'm giving the real version, you can look at the web-site above for the paraphrased version and I'm using her numbering): 8. "I like talking to Rabbit... He doesn't use long difficult words like Owl. He uses short, easy words like "What about lunch?" Spoken by Pooh in HPC; 11. "Pooh", said Piglet reproachfully, "Haven't you been listening to what Rabbit was saying"? "I listened, but I had a small piece of fluff in my ear. Could you say it again, please, Rabbit?" (as an excuse for not paying attention). HPC; 15. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was going to happen. WTP; 58. Which makes it look like a bothering sort of day. HPC
When I googled "Milne vs Disney versions of Pooh", I found the Disney crap predominates in the first several pages, but I finally got verification that I'm not the only one who's noticed the fraud:
http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/...
http://poohmisquoted.weebly.com/
http://through-a-glass-brightly.blogspot.com/...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
So - if anyone has continued reading this far - is there any hope we can get a "cease and desist" order on behalf of the late, great Milne? Or at least get the TRUTH higher up in the Google algorithm???
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