Winnie-the-Pooh Turns 100 With a Google Doodle and New Merch

Oh, bother, we're old.

October 21, 2026 Anthony

E.H. Shepard's 1926 illustration of Pooh's party in the Hundred Acre Wood

Winnie-the-Pooh is officially 100 years old. A.A. Milne's first Pooh book was published on October 14, 1926, by Methuen in the UK and E.P. Dutton in the US, with illustrations by E.H. Shepard (Wikipedia). Google celebrated the day with a Doodle built around Shepard's classic balloon illustration (Google Doodles).

E.H. Shepard drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh floating up on a balloon surrounded by bees — E.H. Shepard's 1926 drawing of Pooh floating up to the honey tree, which the Google Doodle colored in (public domain in the US).

Disney has made Pooh cartoons since Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in 1966. It's celebrating the centennial with an enormous wave of anniversary merchandise. The Disney Parks Blog rounded up the October releases, and WDWNT has the prices.

Target Happy Haul blind capsules, 8 variants, $9.99
Pop Mart "Let's Party!" figures, $19.99
A Steiff Pooh in a bee costume, $160
Pooh-inspired embroidery designs at UNIQLO's RE.UNIQLO STUDIO locations

The anniversary kicked off back in March with two LEGO sets, a $149.99 Pooh with his honey pot and the $39.99 "Piglet's Birthday Fun." New Funko Pops arrived around the same time (USA Today via AOL). Gamers received theirs in July. That's when the Honeyglow Woods Adventure Pack for Disney Dreamlight Valley ($16.99) brought Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore into the game (Shacknews). Farshore, the UK publisher of the classic books, also released an authorised sequel on October 8. It's called Winnie-the-Pooh: A Little Boy and His Bear, by Jane Riordan (Farshore).

The original 1926 book entered the US public domain on January 1, 2022, which is how a horror movie like Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey could even exist in 2023. Disney's own version of Pooh, red shirt and all, remains protected (so the bee-costume Steiff is safe from slasher reboots, for now).

For a lot of us, Pooh was the first fandom we ever had, long before we had a word for it. He was the plush that went everywhere and the VHS tape that wore out. For a certain generation of gamers, the 100 Acre Wood was also a world you could visit in Kingdom Hearts. The books were an immediate success, with Dutton selling 150,000 copies in the US before the end of 1926 (Wikipedia). There's even a Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu. It's the only book in Latin ever to make the New York Times Best Seller list (a very silly old bear achievement).

E.H. Shepard hand-drawn map of the Hundred Acre Wood — Shepard's map of the Hundred Acre Wood from the 1926 first edition (public domain in the US).

My read is that Pooh lasts because the Hundred Acre Wood is the gentlest place in all of fiction, and everybody could use one of those. Collectors seem to agree, and my guess is plenty of these collectibles will disappear before the holidays.

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Header image and illustrations are by E.H. Shepard from the 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh, public domain in the US, via Wikimedia Commons.