In his autobiography, It's Too Late Now (1939), A. A. Milne complains that his children's books have eclipsed his other kinds of writing. Best known before Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) as a playwright, Milne was an important mystery writer, and the popularity of his detective novel, The Red House Mystery (1922), helped establish the conventions of British detective fiction between World War I and World War II.

Born in London, 18 January 1882, Alan Alexander Milne was the son of Sarah Maria Heginbotham Milne and John Vire Milne, a headmaster. Milne and his two elder brothers grew up at their father's preparatory school, Henley House, where they learned to love the schoolboy life of games, cordial intimacy, routine, and study. At Westminster School Milne settled into mathematics as his favorite subject (in which he later earned his B.A. with honors from Trinity College, Cambridge). While at Westminster and during his early years at Cambridge...