Once a Week

Before A.A. Milne became the creator of Winnie the Pooh, he was a sharply funny writer for Punch magazine, and this collection shows exactly why his contemporaries took notice. Once a Week gathers the short fiction he published during his early career, pieces that display a completely different voice from the Hundred Acre Wood: drier, sharper, with a comic's timing and a satirist's eye for English pretension and social awkwardness. These stories are small gems of observation and wit. Milne writes about the ordinary absurdities of English life with a gentle but incisive pen. Whether he's skewering the self-important, the romantically deluded, or the simply bewildered, there's always a warm current beneath the comedy. For anyone who loves Milne's later work, these stories offer a delightful window into the evolution of a writer who would go on to enchant children while secretly keeping his adult sense of humor intact.