Milne, Alan Alexander (1925) ‘When We Were Very Young’, UK first deluxe edition plus handwritten letter signed by Milne

Alan Alexander Milne (1925) ‘When We Were Very Young‘, UK first deluxe edition, bound in blue leather (just like the original trade edition which was published in blue cloth), published by Methuen. In addition, an original letter handwritten and signed by author A.A. Milne. This is an extremely rare edition and certainly the least common of the four leather bound Winnie-the-Pooh books issued in a few hundred copies. When We Were Very Young’ was originally published in 1924 as a regular trade edition only. It was immediately successful and the first printing sold out in one day. The publisher Methuen then decided to issue a deluxe leather bound version in three colours: blue, red, and green. The paper stock of the seventh printing of the trade edition (March 1925) was used for that purpose. In 1926 when ‘Winnie-the -Pooh’ was published it was issued as a deluxe leather bound edition in three colours as well keeping that tradition for the remaing two Pooh books as well.

Condition: a fine and abolutely beautiful copy. No previous owner’s scribbles inside, the leather binding is crsip and clean like on the day of publication. No rubbing to the gilding. Page block edges gilded as called for. The original glassine warpper is present and without any chips or tears, now of course yellowed as over 90 years have passed since publication! The original box is near fine with no strauctural damage at all and a whiff of foxing and darkening as to be expected. The best condition on the marekt and extremely rare to find as the vast majority of deluxe copies are the second editions which used the tenth printing paper stock. this is the real thing!

The letter:

Single page autograph letter, signed as “A.A.Milne” , on stationary with letterhead of 13, Mallord Street, Chelsea, S.W.3. Tel Flaxman 2074. Dated 4 vi 31 Expected center fold. Fine condition.

A warm, jocular letter written by Milne to his dear longtime friends, the Seligmans. Both Milne and his wife Daphne would maintain a close rapport with this couple beginning in the early 1920’s. Milne writes a thank you letter to “Bobs” (Barbara Seligman) for the new club which he most humorously is beating into submission. Along the bottom in a post script , Milne additionally makes a comment to her that it is his 18th anniversary. (He and Daphne married in 1913). The letter is shown in full below:

“Dear Bobs,

Thank you so much for the club. I tried it Friday and though it didn’t play quite as well as yours did on that memorable afternoon when I had the pleasure of beating you at Ashdam Forest, I think it will get all right with a little practice. When it did hit the ball, it hit it a very long way, and as soon as it realizes that I’m not going to (illegible) any nonsense from it we shall get along all right.

So again my many thanks indeed; it was charming of you to send it.

Yours ever

A.A. Milne

Give my love to your husband and thank him again for his matches.

The 18th anniversary of our wedding day!”

A.A. Milne played a fair amount of golf, in the mid-1920s he mentioned he got “his handicap to 9”. In his autobiography published several years later, Milne talks about golf. “To-day, I could be happy without a car, I could be happy without a country cottage, but I shouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t be reckless about golf balls, taxis, the best seats at cricket grounds and theatres, shirts and pullovers, tips, subscriptions, books and wine-lists.” While discussing the creative process of writing Milne says, “I have spent many mornings at Lords [Cricket Grounds] hoping that inspiration would come, many days on golf courses; I have even gone to sleep in the afternoon, in case inspiration came to take me completely by surprise. In vain.” Milne’s biographer Ann Thwaite mentioned his playing golf at Addington, Royal Wimbledon and Walton Heath and that he played at least on one occasion with Bernard Darwin. He called Walton Heath, “about the most difficult course in London, with heather a foot high on each side of a narrow fairway, and a perpetual wind. I play a terrible lot of golf now – always twice and often 3 times a week, and it’s really time I settled down to work again.” After he moved out of London Milne also played the nine-hole course Holtye golf club in Sussex with his son often. The course was a ten minute drive from his cottage in Sussex which is also located near Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club.

But in typical Milne reflective thoughts on life, his most famous line about golf is from The Charm of Golf, published in 1920 in, Not That It Matters, “Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.”