A.A. Milne

One of his Winnie the Pooh stories is about the depressed donkey Eeyore thinking his friends have forgotten his birthday, when in fact they have been planning a surprise party. In 1963, several English Department students at the University of Texas at Austin decided to celebrate the character's birthday. The event, known as Eeyore's birthday, has been celebrated every year in May ever since.

The first Pooh story, "The Wrong Sort of Bees," was published in the London Evening News in 1925. It was so popular Milne wrote a host of Pooh books and poetry volumes over the next three years: "Winnie-the-Pooh" was published by Methuen on October 14th, 1926, the verses 'Now We are Six' in 1927, and 'The House at Pooh Corner' in 1928. All these books were illustrated in a beautiful way by E.H. Shepard, which made the books even more magical. The Pooh books became firm favorites with old and young alike and have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Thai, Hebrew and Braille; Germans know the bear as Winnie der Pu, while Russians call him Vinnie Pookh and Norwegians know him as Ole Brumm. A conservative figure for the total sales of the four Methuen editions (including When We Were Very Young) up to the end of 1996 would be over 20 million copies.