In January 2025, a collection of previously unseen letters, manuscripts and illustrations connected to Winnie-the-Pooh creator A.A. Milne sold at auction for £95,000, bringing renewed attention to documents that had remained among a publisher’s private papers for decades. The archive was found by Simon Smith while he was sorting through the attic of his late father, Leslie Smith, who passed away in November 2023. Among the papers was a letter dated March 28, 1928, where Milne jokingly defended Pooh in response to an article in which a newspaper called the bear a “fabulous monster”. The auction was held almost 97 years after the letter was written, even though the papers were discovered in 2023. The collection consisted of original manuscripts, sketches, proof sheets and correspondence intended for the original publisher Methuen & Co., but which eventually ended up in the archives of later publisher Frederick Muller.
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