Winnie was surreptitiously brought to England with her owner, and gained unofficial recognition as The Fort Garry Horse regimental mascot. Colebourn, a veterinary officer with the Fort Garry Horse cavalry regiment, named the bear Winnie after his adopted hometown in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The bear cub was purchased from a hunter for C$20 by Canadian Lieutenant Harry Colebourn in White River, Ontario, while en route to England during the First World War. Christopher Robin had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo, and Pooh, a friend's pet swan they had encountered while on holiday. In 1921, Milne bought his son Christopher Robin the toy bear from Harrods department store. In popular film adaptations, Pooh has been voiced by actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith, and Jim Cummings in English, and Yevgeny Leonov in Russian. Milne and the licensing agent Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and adapted the Pooh stories, using the unhyphenated name 'Winnie the Pooh', into a series of features that would eventually become one of its most successful franchises. In 1961, The Walt Disney Company licensed certain film and other rights of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories from the estate of A. The original English manuscripts are held at Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge, Milne's alma mater to whom he had bequeathed the works. The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, including Alexander Lenard's Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958, and, in 1960, became the only Latin book ever to have been featured on The New York Times Best Seller list. The stories are set in Hundred Acre Wood, which was inspired by Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex-situated 30 miles (48 km) south of London-where the Londoner Milne's country home was located. Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children's verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927).

The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928).

The character is based on a stuffed toy that Milne had bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925. Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A.

The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne