Authors all too often become the victims of their own success, forever associated with only a handful of their works which are a relatively small part of an otherwise prolific output. For an author of successful plays and novels as A.A. Milne was, to be then only known as a children's writer was an annoyance to say the least. Yet it comes as no surprise that in Milne's 1922 book "The Red House Mystery" we find much of the warmth and wit that was a few years later to characterize his children's writing in The" Winnie The Pooh" books; albeit in the very different setting of a murder mystery!
Here is a classic "locked room" conundrum with a delicious twist in the tale.
A.A. Milne, Alan Alexander Milne, 1882-1956, britisk humorist, dramatiker og børnebogsforfatter.
Navnlig kendt for sine tilsyneladende enkle fortællinger om Winnie-the-Pooh (Peter Plys) og andre meget menneskelige tøjdyr, hvis problemer og bekymringer har bud til både børn og voksne: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926, da. Peter Plys, 1930) og The House at Pooh Corner (1928, da. Peter Plys og hans Venner, 1931).
Milne indledte sin forfatterkarriere med underholdende scenedramatik og skrev også nogle romaner, herunder detektivromanen The Red House Mystery (1922). Men ud over fortællingerne om Peter Plys er kun The Toad of Toad Hall (1929), som er hans scenebearbejdelse af Kenneth Grahames The Wind in the Willows, (Vinden i piletræerne), blevet stående, med status som traditionelt engelsk juleskuespil.
