If I May

A. A. Milne

BiblioBazaar, 2008 - Literary Collections - 152 pages

My partciular memory is of a quail-pie. Quails may be all right for Moses in the desert, but, if they are served in the form of pie at dinner, they should be distributed at a side-table, not handed round from guest to guest. The Countess having shuddered at it and resumed her biscuit, it was left to me to make the opening excavation. The difficulty was to know where each quail began and ended; the job really wanted a professional quail-finder, who might have indicated the point on the surface of the crust at which it would be most hopeful to dig for quails.

About the author

A prolific writer, A. A. Milne published 35 plays, 6 novels, 3 books of verse, 3 collections of short stories, and several works of nonfiction, including sketches for Punch magazine, of which he was the assistant editor. Nevertheless, his fame rests on four books for children: two of whimsical stories about the stuffed animals in his son's bedroom (Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner) and two of verse (When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six). All are considered classics and have been included among the Children's Literature Association's Touchstone books as the best in children's literature, on the Lewis Carroll Shelf list, and on the Choice magazine list of books for the academic library. He also wrote Toad of Toad Hall, a play based on Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, and Once upon a Time: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups, both of which are sometimes included in volumes with the four classic works. Milne had a son, Christopher Robin, who served as the model for the little boy in his children's books.

Bibliographic information

• Title: If I May
• Author: A. A. Milne
• Edition: reprint, large print
• Publisher: BiblioBazaar, 2008
• ISBN: 0554289520, 9780554289526
• Length: 152 pages
• Subjects: Literary Collections / General