Member-only story
Down the Rabbit Hole
In which the author recounts a journey of imagination triggered by purchasing used books
The late British author A.A. Milne is perhaps best known for his Winnie the Pooh books — tales of delightful anthropomorphic animals that bring a fantastical world to life in children’s imaginations. Lately, I’ve been taking a different sort of imaginary voyage, thanks to his poetry. (For more on how this occurred, see the story links at the end of this post.)
After a recent rediscovery of Milne’s delightful rhymes, I decided to see if I could buy copies of the original books. Not the shiny modern Disney versions, but the original black and white hard-cover volumes illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.
I knew that the first editions were nearly 100 years old, and it was likely that a high quality copy would command a high price. And I wasn’t wrong.
I found a set of first editions on ABE Books signed by the author for just $78,000 US.
(When I checked today, it seems to have sold. The dearest option is a set of four first editions from 1928 for $27,000 US — no autographs in this lot.)
