E. H. Shepard - Illustrator

E.H. Shepard famously illustrated both Winnie-the-Pooh (by A. A. Milne) and The Wind in the Willows though, like A.A. Milne, much of his career was devoted to work for the satirical magazine Punch.

A Londoner, Shepard was always artistic. He trained at the Royal Academy before going to fight in the First World War and winning the Military Cross. On his return he continued to work for Punch, where a fellow staffer recommended him to A. A. Milne as a suitable illustrator for his book of children's poems, When We Were Very Young. Milne was initially sceptical but was won over by his colleague's subtle, delicate evocative style and evident skill at drawing children.

To do the illustrations for Winnie-the-Pooh, Shepard observed the real Christopher Robin Milne, but not the real Pooh. The bear in the pictures is in fact based on Growler, a toy belonging to Shepard's own son.

Shepard's pictures for The Wind in the Willows were done after his Pooh illustrations, some 20 years after the novel was first published. However, they have become the definitive accompaniment to Kenneth Grahame's classic.

Tribute to E.H. Shepard, inscribed by A. A. Milne on Shepard's copy of Winnie-the-Pooh:

When I am gone,
Let Shepard decorate my tomb,
And put (if there is room)
Two pictures on the stone:
Piglet from page a hundred and eleven,
And Pooh and Piglet walking (157)…
And Peter, thinking that they are my own,
Will welcome me to Heaven.