Winnie the Pooh papers fetch £95,000 at auction

The collection included proofs for Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner

A plastic bag attic find that contained original Winnie the Pooh manuscripts and drawings and other papers linked to the bear's creator AA Milne has sold at auction for £95,000.

The rare archive was discovered in Malvern, Worcestershire, among private possessions belonging to Leslie Smith, who had a lifelong career in publishing.

A total of 34 individual lots included drafts and corrected proofs for stories Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner, along with Milne autographs and correspondence from The Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien and children's writer Enid Blyton.

Will Farmer, director of Fieldings Auctioneers which sold the collection on Thursday said the find had "captured the imagination of the publishing world".

"Two-thirds of the collection, I'm pleased to say, [is] going to stay here in the UK, and the remaining third is going to collectors in the United States," he said.

Leslie Smith had a lifelong career in the publishing industry

The collection includes previously unseen correspondence between Pooh author Milne, illustrator E.H. Shepherd and publisher Frederick Muller.

Simon Smith, who found the letters and drawings in his late father's attic, told the BBC the auction had an "absolutely incredible result" and had fetched far more than he had expected.

He said the people who had bought his favourite item from the collection - notes from Tolkien to his father - had walked out of the auction room "very happy with it".

He added: "Dad had never told us there was this treasure trove.

"We could have just chucked it out along with all the other stuff that was in the loft."

Fifteen lots per hour

Mr Farmer said printers' proofs featuring annotations and illustrations, which were sent to Milne from publishers, fetched £18,000, despite being estimated between £300 and £500.

He said there had been lots of bidding during the auction in Stourbridge, with 15 of the lots sold per hour.

"It's arguably the case that these books remain some of the most loved, the most well-known and the most famous children's books in history," he said.