What was the fate of the real prototypes of children's fairy tales

October 14 , 1926 at the London publishing house Methuen & Alan Milne's book "Winnie the Pooh" was published recently.

Children, as well as adults, love fairy tales, they allow you to be transported to a new world, embraced by kindness, besides, every fairy tale has a good ending. Everyone is well aware of the brightest characters of famous children's fairy tales, such as Christopher Robin from the tale of Winnie the Pooh, Alice from Wonderland and Peter Pan, but few people know that all these characters were not just invented, but created based on the personalities of real children.

We invite you to see these little-known children, who were the real prototypes of the heroes of three famous fairy tales, and find out how their fate turned out, from childhood to death.

Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin, the son of the English writer Alan Milne, is the prototype of Christopher Robin in the collection of stories about Winnie the Pooh. Later he would write: "There were two things that darkened my life and from which I had to escape: the glory of my father and "Christopher Robin".

A girl was expected in the Milne family, and a boy was born, who was still brought up as a girl. The relationship with the parents did not work out — the mother was busy only with herself, the father with his creativity.

The child grew up very kind, nervous and shy, spending most of the time, alas, with a babysitter. "The prototype of Christopher Robin and Piglet at the same time," as psychologists will later say about him.

The boy's favorite toy was Teddy bear of the London firm "Farnell", which his father gave him for his first birthday.

He became the only friend, interlocutor, and a little later the main character of Alan Milne's books about Winnie the Pooh.

Christopher was not particularly close to his father and became friends with him only when his mother left them, having gone to her lover for three years. Christopher will remember this time as the happiest.

He fought during the Second World War, was wounded. He did not communicate with his mother, or rather she with him: Dorothy Milne would not say goodbye to her son, even when she was dying. After the war, he married his cousin against the wishes of his father, who feared for their future offspring. And, in general, for good reason: Christopher's daughter was born with cerebral palsy. Although Alan Milne no longer found his granddaughter, he died three years before her birth.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice Liddell is the prototype of Alice in Wonderland from Lewis Carroll's book. The daughter of the rector of Oxford University. She probably has a calmer biography. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (who worked under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) was a close friend of their family, often walking with Alice and her sisters, entertaining the girls with a fairy tale that he invented on the go. Later, at Alice's request, Lewis recorded it and two years later gave her a manuscript with the inscription "A Christmas gift to a dear girl in memory of a summer day." The manuscript was accompanied by a photograph of Alice taken by himself.

Alice Liddell at 7 years old, photo by Lewis Carroll, 1859.

The friendship with the girl was innocent, although Alice's parents told how Carroll once asked them to let him ask for her hand when she grew up.

She has lived a long life. She married well, gave birth to three sons, two of whom died during the First World War.

After her husband's death in 1926, Alice, in order to pay utility bills, auctioned a handwritten copy of "Alice" given to her by Dodgson, which was sold at Sotheby's for 15,400 pounds.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan from the tale of the Scotsman James Barry. He is also Michael Davis, the son of the writer's friends - Sylvia and Arthur Davis. In general, Barry dedicated a magical story about an eternal child who does not want to grow old to his older brother, who died skating the day before his 9th birthday.

And I knew the Davises for a long time, I was friends with all their five sons, but it was four-year-old Michael (a brilliant boy, as they said about him) who became the prototype of Peter Pan. Or rather, his age, personality traits and nightmares.

Years later, the storyteller became so close to the boy's mother that after the death of her husband, he divorced his wife and moved to live with the Davises. However, they never married - in 1910 Sylvia Davis died of inoperable breast cancer. After that, Barry became the guardian of her five sons.

Well, what about Michael? The boy grew up and shortly before his 21st birthday drowned with his lover in a pond a few miles from Oxford.