A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, England to parents John Vine Milne and Sarah Maria (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, London, a small independent school run by his father.[1] One of his teachers was H. G. Wells who taught there in 1889–90.[2] Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge,[3] where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine.[1] He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.

Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour.[1][4] During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English humour writer P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the lighthearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."[5]

He married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex.[6] During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid and by August 1953 "he seemed very old and disenchanted".[7] Cotchford Farm was where the Rolling Stones' lead guitarist Brian Jones would later live and be found drowned in 1969.

The Ugly Duckling is a comedy play by A. A. Milne, written c.1941 which has nothing to do with the Hans Christian Andersen story. In the play, a King and a Queen have a hard time marrying their daughter, an ugly princess. "Her beauty is certainly elusive, Your Majesty!" "Yes, it has eluded you, it has eluded me, it has eluded everyone who has met her." They devise a scheme to marry her to a prince from a far away land. To every suitor they ask a ridiculously easy question, in the hopes they will marry the UGLY princess. But the princess is so ugly that all the princes guess wrong. So, to meet the next suitor, the Princess Camilla disguises herself as her maid Dulcibella, while Dulcibella pretends to be Princess Camilla.

However, Prince Simon has also disguised himself as his servant Carlo, and dressed Carlo up as the prince because he felt he wasn't handsome enough. Both the pretend prince and princess are insanely dull witted, which just adds to the entertainment. Before the marriage of the two servants dressed as royalty, the real prince meets the real princess and they reveal their identity and begin to understand each other.

Prince Simon tells Princess Camilla that she is very beautiful, although all other princes have found her to be hideously ugly. Then the princess reveals that she was given a gift from her great aunt that would make everyone ignorant of her real beauty, so that she wouldn't grow up vain - until the day she met her one true love. The play ends with the riddle being answered incorrectly, despite the fact that Carlo, the mock-prince, was given the correct answer beforehand. The answer clearly should have been "cat," but Carlo's answer was dog. Yet with some quick thinking from Prince Simon, Carlo gets the answer right because Simon claims that what is referred to in this country as "cat" is referred to as "dog" in the mock-prince's country. Because of this, it is seen fit that the two should be married.

At the very end, the king wonders why Princess Camilla is suddenly beautiful when the audience can see that it is because of the blessing/curse coming to fruition -- Camilla has found her true love, the first one to whom she appears lovely.

The Characters are The Prince, The Princess, The King, Dulcibella, The Queen, Carlo and The Chancellor.