Queen Camilla to Replace Lost Roo, Completing Pooh Set at NYPL
Queen Camilla has brought a new Roo to New York, finally reuniting the stuffed animals that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh after nearly a century.
Queen Camilla presented a specially made replacement Roo to the New York Public Library, restoring the missing character to the group of stuffed animals that inspired A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The baby kangaroo named Roo was lost in an apple orchard during the 1930s, leaving Winnie-the-Pooh’s original circle incomplete for decades.
The gift completed the set of original toys for the first time in nearly 100 years. The library’s collection already included Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger, the same toys that helped shape the books that became part of children’s literature around the world. Christopher Robin Milne received the original teddy bear on August 21, 1921, his first birthday, and the characters later appeared in Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926 and The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.
The toys traveled a long way before reaching the library’s hands. They were brought to the United States in 1947 and spent most of the next four decades on display in the offices of Milne’s American publisher, E.P. Dutton, before being donated to the New York Public Library in 1987. In 2016, the collection underwent a year-long conservation project that helped ensure its preservation.
Today, the original Winnie-the-Pooh and friends are displayed in the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, where entry is free. The new Roo now joins the surviving toys in New York, closing a gap that began when the stuffed baby kangaroo disappeared from the orchard nearly a century ago and bringing the full Pooh set back together at last.
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