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Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

book by David Benedictus

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ2464630 ↗
Source-derived summary

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is a Winnie-the-Pooh novel published on 5 October 2009. Written by David Benedictus and illustrated by Mark Burgess, it was the first such book since 1928 and introduced the character Lottie the Otter.

In the mid-1990s, after completing an audio adaptation of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Benedictus wrote two Pooh short stories of his own and submitted them to the trustees of the Milne estate. The trustees replied that they were unable to publish the stories because "Walt Disney owned all the rights." However, ten years later, Benedictus was contacted by the trustees, who explained that "the sequel rights had reverted to them" and asked Benedictus to make changes to one of the short stories and to submit some more. This collection of stories was published as Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

Chapters

In Which Christopher Robin Returns

In Which Owl Does a Crossword and a Spelling Bee Is Held

In Which Rabbit Organizes Almost Everything

In Which It Stops Raining for Ever and Something Slinky Comes Out of the River

In Which Pooh Goes in Search of Honey

In Which Owl Becomes an Author and Then Unbecomes One

In Which Lottie Starts an Academy and Everybody Learns Something

In Which We Are Introduced to the Game of Cricket

In Which Tigger Dreams of Africa

In Which a Harvest Festival Is Held in the Forest and Christopher Robin Springs a Surprise

Lottie the Otter

Lottie is a new character in Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

Lottie is said to be a "feisty" character who is also said to be good at cricket and insists on proper etiquette. According to Benedictus, "Lottie the Otter truly embodies Winnie-the-Pooh's values of friendship and adventure seen throughout Milne's work, thus making the perfect companion for everyone's favourite bear."

References

External links

After 80 years, Pooh returns to Hundred Acre Woods in sequel

Extract and sample illustration

Publishers Weekly review "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood". Retrieved 5 January 2015.

Editorial summary

“Return to the Hundred Acre Wood” enters the record as book by David Benedictus. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Return, Hundred and Acre can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 1928, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2009. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Return, Hundred and Acre.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Return to the Hundred Acre Wood” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Return, Hundred and Acre provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2464630. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 1928 and 2015.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Return to the Hundred Acre Wood primary sources, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood archive and Return research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.