44-616: Kenneth Grahame ( / ˈ ɡ r eɪ . ə m / GRAY -əm ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer. He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature The Wind in the Willows (1908). Scottish by birth, he spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in England, following the death of his mother and his father's inability to look after the children. After attending St Edward's School in Oxford, his ambition to attend university
88-567: A cerebral haemorrhage on 6 July 1932. He was buried at the Church of St James the Less in Pangbourne, with his body later being removed to Holywell cemetery to be buried with Alastair. Grahame's cousin, Anthony Hope, wrote his epitaph: "To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him
132-462: A fortune on fines. With the arrival of spring, the three of them put Toad under house arrest with themselves as the guards, but Toad pretends to be sick and tricks Ratty to leave so he can escape. Badger and Mole continue to live in Toad Hall in the hope that Toad may return. Toad orders lunch at The Red Lion Inn and then sees a motorcar pull into the courtyard. Taking the car, he drives it recklessly,
176-650: A lease on a house in the Kensington Crescent (now demolished) in Kensington , which he shared with another writer, Tom Greg, until the latter's marriage, and housekeeper Sarah Bath. The Golden Age , published in 1895, was a collection of stories about four children being brought up by aunts and uncles referred to as the Olympians. Some of the chapters had already been published in Pagan Papers while most had appeared in
220-477: A new story was The Reluctant Dragon . In 1897, Grahame met Elspeth (Elsie) Thomson, the daughter of Robert William Thomson and sister of Courtauld Thomson . Elsie had written a novel, as well as plays and poems. Having lost both her parents, she was living in Onslow Square with her stepfather John Fletcher Moulton who was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. Grahame and Elsie married on 22 July 1899, at
264-454: A private tutor to prepare for the University of Oxford . During World War I , Grahame did war work in the village, setting up a factory for surgical supplies, while Alastair was rejected for active service, probably on account of his poor eyesight, and went up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1918. On 7 May 1920, Alastair's body was found on the railway line near a level crossing in Oxford. Although
308-571: A snowy winter's day, hoping to meet the elusive but virtuous and wise Badger. He gets lost in the woods, succumbs to fright, and hides among the sheltering roots of a tree. Rat finds him as snow begins to fall in earnest. Attempting to find their way home, Mole barks his shin on the boot scraper on Badger's doorstep. Badger welcomes Rat and Mole to his large, cosy underground home, providing them with hot food, dry clothes, and reassuring conversation. Badger learns from his visitors that Toad has crashed seven cars, has been in hospital three times, and has spent
352-535: Is allowed to creep in: nostalgia. The BBC has broadcast a number of radio productions of the story. Dramatisations include: Abridged readings: Other presentation formats: Mapledurham House in Oxfordshire was an inspiration for Toad Hall, although Hardwick House and Fawley Court also make this claim. The village of Lerryn in Cornwall claims to be the setting for the book. Simon Winchester suggested that
396-535: Is caught by the police, and is sent to prison for 20 years. In prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the gaoler's daughter, who helps him to escape disguised as a washerwoman. After a long series of misadventures, he returns to the hole of the Water Rat. Rat hauls Toad inside and informs him that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels , stoats , and ferrets from the Wild Wood, who have driven out Mole and Badger. Armed to
440-411: Is rich, jovial, friendly, and kindhearted, but sometimes arrogant and rash; he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly. His current craze is his horse-drawn caravan . When a passing car scares his horse and causes the caravan to overturn into a ditch, Toad's craze for caravan travel is immediately replaced by an obsession with motorcars. Mole goes to the Wild Wood on
484-517: The Bank of England . He moved with his wife and son to an old farmhouse in Blewbury , Berkshire . There, he used the bedtime stories he had told Alastair as a basis for the manuscript of The Wind in the Willows . With the arrival of spring and fine weather outside, the good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning, exclaiming, "Hang spring cleaning!" He leaves behind his underground home and comes up at
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#1732851770563528-676: The Church of St Fimbarrus, Fowey , Cornwall. Grahame had been recovering from pneumonia with his friend Arthur Quiller Couch and family in Fowey . The best man at the wedding was Grahame's cousin, the writer Anthony Hope . Grahame's sister, Helen, disapproved of the marriage, thinking the couple were temperamentally unsuited to each other, and the brother and sister became estranged. The couple set up home in Durham Villas (now Phillimore Place ) in Kensington , where their only child, Alastair (nicknamed Mouse)
572-833: The Crinan Canal , because Grahame spent some of his childhood in Ardrishaig . There is a proposal that the idea for the story arose when its author saw a water vole beside the River Pang in Berkshire, southern England. A 29 hectare extension to the nature reserve at Moor Copse , near Tidmarsh Berkshire, was acquired in January ;2007 by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust . Peter Ackroyd , in his book Thames: Sacred River , asserts that "Quarry Wood, bordering on
616-519: The National Observer and other periodicals. The book made Grahame famous and established him as a leading authority on childhood. The poet Algernon Swinburne said the book was "well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise". A sequel, Dream Days followed in 1898, the year that Grahame was appointed Secretary to the Bank of England. Dream Days included stories published in periodicals over the past four years;
660-451: The Bank and become a full-time writer. In 1893 he encouraged Grahame to send a collection of his short stories and essays to John Lane at The Bodley Head publishers. The collection was published with the title Pagan Papers and illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley and was well received by critics. Grahame was now in demand as a writer, and became a regular contributor to The Bodley Head periodical, The Yellow Book . In 1894, Grahame took out
704-641: The Bank left him time to pursue his literary interests. He had been jotting down his thoughts in prose and poetry in a bank ledger, but it was not until 1887 that he started to submit stories and essays to periodicals. His first published piece appeared in St James's Gazette in December 1888. He was then invited to become a regular contributor to the National Observer by its editor, the poet William Ernest Henley , who tried to persuade him to give up his position with
748-525: The Bank of England in Threadneedle Street in the City of London as a "gentleman clerk". He would stay at the Bank for nearly thirty years, working his way up to become its youngest Secretary (one of the Bank's three highest officers) at the age of thirty-nine. In the entrance examination to become a clerk, Grahame had scored the highest marks of his intake, and became the only candidate to score 100 percent in
792-452: The Bank. Grahame retired from the Bank in 1908, aged forty-nine, ostensibly on the grounds of ill-health. In his resignation letter, Grahame stated that his health was being affected by his work. A different explanation for Grahame's retirement was offered by a former colleague, W. Marston Acres, who wrote in 1950 that Grahame's resentment of the bullying manner of a director during a discussion about official business provoked him into accusing
836-817: The English Essay paper. To be nearer his work, Grahame took lodgings in Bloomsbury Street , which he later shared with his brother Roland, who also worked at the Bank. In 1882 he moved into a flat in Chelsea , where he lived on his own and caught the ferry to work. In 1884, he became a volunteer at Toynbee Hall , working with impoverished youths from the East End of London . Summer holidays with his sister, Helen, were spent in Cornwall and Italy, both places which would remain favourite destinations throughout his life. Grahame's work at
880-804: The Willows was published in 1908, four months after the author's resignation from the Bank. Rejected at first by Everybody's Magazine in the United States and by Grahame's usual publishers, Bodley Head, the book was eventually published in the United Kingdom by Methuen , with an American edition released by Scribner . Reviews were generally unfavourable; a reviewer in The Times wrote: "Grown-up readers will find it monstruous and elusive, children will hope, in vain, for more fun". A rare positive review appeared in Vanity Fair where Richard Middleton wrote that it
924-495: The Willows . In 1903, Grahame had a narrow escape when a man entered the Bank of England and took three shots at him with a revolver , missing each time. The man, George Frederick Robinson, was overpowered and arrested. After a trial at the Old Bailey in which he was found guilty but insane, he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital . Grahame never completely recovered from the trauma and it may have contributed to his early retirement from
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#1732851770563968-449: The bank of the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Rat, a water vole , who takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with "Ratty" teaching Mole the ways of the river, with the two friends living together in Ratty's riverside home. One summer day, Rat and Mole disembark near the grand Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad
1012-411: The character of Ratty was based on Frederick Furnivall , a keen oarsman and acquaintance of Grahame. However, Grahame himself said that this character was inspired by his good friend, the writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch . Grahame wrote this in a signed copy he gave to Quiller-Couch's daughter, Foy Felicia. The Scotsman and Oban Times suggested The Wind in the Willows was inspired by
1056-516: The characters as old friends". In The Enchanted Places , Christopher Robin Milne wrote of The Wind in the Willows : A book that we all greatly loved and admired and read aloud or alone, over and over and over: The Wind in the Willows . This book is, in a way, two separate books put into one. There are, on the one hand, those chapters concerned with the adventures of Toad; and on the other hand there are those chapters that explore human emotions –
1100-561: The children to Scotland but the arrangement did not work out and the children returned to Cranbourne in 1867, while their father resigned his post in Scotland, went to live in France and had no further contact with his children. In 1868, when he was nine years old, Grahame became a boarder at the recently-established St Edward's School in Oxford. He was successful at school both academically and in sport, winning prizes for divinity and Latin in 1874 and
1144-549: The daughter of Robert William Thomson . The next year they had their only child, a boy named Alastair (nicknamed "Mouse"). He was born premature, blind in one eye, and plagued by health problems throughout his life. When Alastair was about four years old, Grahame would tell him bedtime stories, some of which were about a toad, and on his frequent boating holidays without his family he would write further tales of Toad, Mole, Ratty, and Badger in letters to Alastair. In 1908, Grahame took early retirement from his position as secretary of
1188-494: The director of being "no gentleman". Marston Acres believed the director in question to be Walter Cunliffe who would later become Governor of the Bank of England . On leaving the Bank, Grahame was awarded an annual pension of £400, although he could have expected to receive £710. In 1906, he had taken out a lease on a house called Mayfield (later Herries Preparatory School) in Cookham Dean, close to where he grew up. The Wind in
1232-510: The emotions of fear, nostalgia, awe, wanderlust. My mother was drawn to the second group, of which "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" was her favourite, read to me again and again with always, towards the end, the catch in the voice and the long pause to find her handkerchief and blow her nose. My father, on his side, was so captivated by the first group that he turned these chapters into the children's play, Toad of Toad Hall . In this play one emotion only
1276-459: The jury at the inquest returned a verdict of accidental death, rumours of suicide persisted. He was buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford on 12 May 1920, his twentieth birthday. Following the death of their son, Grahame and Elsie went to Italy and spent several years travelling. When they returned to England, they settled at Church Cottage in the village of Pangbourne , where Grahame died of
1320-403: The main narrative, the book contains several independent short stories featuring Rat and Mole, such as an encounter with the wild god Pan while searching for Otter's son Portly, and Ratty's meeting with a Sea Rat. These appear for the most part between the chapters chronicling Toad's adventures, and they are often omitted from abridgements and dramatisations. The original publication of the book
1364-516: The main narrative. The novel was based on bedtime stories Grahame told his son Alastair. It has been adapted numerous times for both stage and screen. The Wind in the Willows received negative reviews upon its initial release, but it has since become a classic of British literature . It was listed at No. 16 in the BBC 's survey The Big Read and has been adapted multiple times in different media. In 1899, at age 40, Kenneth Grahame married Elspeth Thomson,
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1408-698: The manuscript. It was published in the UK by Methuen and Co. , and later in the US by Scribner . The critics, who were hoping for a third volume in the style of Grahame's earlier works, The Golden Age and Dream Days , generally gave negative reviews. The public loved it, however, and within a few years it sold in such numbers that many reprints were required, with 100 editions reached in Britain alone by 1951. In 1909, then US President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Grahame to tell that he had "read it and reread it, and have come to accept
1452-713: The more blest for all time." Elsie survived him by fourteen years. Grahame bequeathed the royalties from his works to the Bodleian Library , which also holds his archive. The Wind in the Willows The Wind in the Willows is a classic children's novel by the British novelist Kenneth Grahame , first published in 1908. It details the story of Mole, Ratty, and Badger as they try to help Mr. Toad , after he becomes obsessed with motorcars and gets into trouble. It also details short stories about them that are disconnected from
1496-546: The river [Thames] at Cookham Dean , is the original of [the] 'Wild Wood'..." Bloomsbury Street Bloomsbury Street is a street in the Bloomsbury district of the London Borough of Camden that runs from Gower Street in the north to the junction of New Oxford Street and Shaftesbury Avenue in the south. Bloomsbury Street contains three listed buildings : In 1907, the postcard publisher Frederick Hartmann
1540-525: The sixth form prize in 1875, captaining the rugby fifteen, and becoming head boy. Holidays were spent at Cranbourne or with his naval commander uncle, Jack Ingles, and his children in Portsmouth and London. It was during a Christmas holiday in London in 1875 that Grahame's brother, Willie, died of a chest infection. While he was at school, Grahame dreamt of attending Oxford University , but his uncle, John Grahame,
1584-424: The teeth, Badger, Rat, Mole, and Toad enter through the tunnel and pounce upon the unsuspecting Wild-Wooders who are holding a celebratory party. Having driven away the intruders, Toad holds a banquet to mark his return, during which he behaves both quietly and humbly. He makes up for his earlier excesses by seeking out and compensating those he has wronged, and the four friends live happily ever after. In addition to
1628-534: Was "the best book ever written for children and one of the best written for adults". The book sold well and continued to sell well, reaching 100 editions in the United Kingdom in 1951. In 1910, the Grahames moved from Cookham Dean to a farmhouse, Boham's, in the village of Blewbury near Oxford. Grahame's son Alastair flourished at The Old Malthouse School but went on to have brief, and less happy, experiences at Rugby School and Eton College before having lessons with
1672-459: Was a little more than a year old, his father was appointed as sheriff-substitute in Argyllshire , and the family moved to Inveraray on Loch Fyne with Grahame, his older sister, Helen, and his older brother, Thomas William (known as Willie). In March 1864, Grahame's younger brother, Roland, was born and the following month Grahame's mother died of scarlet fever . Grahame contracted the disease and
1716-517: Was born prematurely in 1900 with a congenital cataract that left him blind in one eye. Grahame told his son bedtime stories about a mole, beaver, and water-rat, and the letters he wrote when Alastair was holidaying with his nanny in Littlehampton in 1907 while his parents were in Falmouth, Cornwall , included stories about a toad. These stories about animals have been seen as the source for The Wind in
1760-699: Was opposed to the idea and refused to finance it. Instead, Grahame began work as a clerk in his uncle's firm of parliamentary agents Grahame, Currie and Spens. While working in the Westminster office, he lodged with another uncle, Robert Grahame, in Fulham , joined the London Scottish Volunteers and, having met Frederick James Furnivall in a Soho restaurant, became a member of the New Shakspere Society . On 1 January 1879, aged nineteen, Grahame entered
1804-464: Was plain text, with a frontispiece illustrated by Graham Robertson, but many illustrated, comic, and annotated versions have been published over the years. Notable illustrators include Paul Bransom (1913), Nancy Barnhart (1922), Wyndham Payne (1927), Ernest H. Shepard (1931), Arthur Rackham (1940), Richard Cuffari (1966), Tasha Tudor (1966), Michael Hague (1980), Scott McKowen (2005), and Robert Ingpen (2007). A number of publishers rejected
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1848-478: Was seriously ill. Although he recovered, he was left vulnerable to chest infections for the rest of his life. After their mother's death, the four children were sent to live with their maternal grandmother at The Mount , a large house in extensive grounds in Cookham Dean in Berkshire , while their grieving father remained in Scotland and took to drink. Also living at The Mount was Grahame's uncle David Ingles, who
1892-527: Was the curate at the local church and took the children boating on the River Thames at nearby Bisham . The children were supported financially by Grahame's paternal uncle, John Grahame, who was a parliamentary agent in London. In the spring of 1866, after the collapse of a chimney at The Mount, the children moved with their grandmother to Fernhill Cottage in Cranbourne . Later that year, Grahame's father recalled
1936-470: Was thwarted and he joined the Bank of England , where he had a successful career. Before writing The Wind in the Willows , he published three other books: Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), and Dream Days (1898). Grahame was born on 8 March 1859 at 32 Castle Street in Edinburgh . His parents were James Cunningham Grahame (1830–1887), advocate , and Elizabeth Ingles (1837–1864). When Grahame
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