On Christmas Eve, 1925, London readers opened the Evening News and met Winnie the Pooh for the first time. Author A.A. Milne had based the character on a stuffed bear he bought for his young son. The following year, Milne began working with illustrator E.H. Shepard on a series of four books about Pooh and his friends; he notably modeled the character of Christopher Robin after his son.

Three years after that first newspaper appearance, Milne and Shepard made six colored illustrations for Home Chat magazine. The images ran one per issue in 1928 to announce the release of The House at Pooh Corner, the second in the Winnie-the-Pooh series. These six illustrations were made solely for the magazine and never appeared in any books.