GRAHAME, Kenneth

“open magic doors to rare and unforgettable experiences” 

Born in the middle of the 19^th century, Kenneth Grahame watched with horror the unstoppable march of the Industrial Revolution and the concomitant decay of rural England, and his Romantic view of the natural world permeates his writing.  Although the need to earn a living had necessitated Grahame working as a bank clerk, his love was always for literature, and in 1877 whilst sitting an exam for the Bank of England he gained an unprecedented full marks for his English essay.  He started writing short stories, drawing on his childhood experiences with his three siblings and in 1895 he published The Golden Age, followed in 1898 by Dream Days, both of which were received with great critical acclaim.   However, it was the desire to tell his young son, Alistair, bedtime stories that led, eventually, to his greatest creation, Wind in the Willows.  In 1904, when his son was only four years old, Grahame started telling him tales about, among others, a mole, a rat and a bombastic toad. Feeling that the story could be a successful book, Grahame looked for a publisher, but was rejected several times before Methuen took it on, publishing it in October 1908.  It was so successful that before the month was over, Methuen had reissued it.  Wind in the Willows has proved to be one of the classics of children’s literature, has been illustrated by some of the genre’s greatest illustrators, most notably Arthur Rackham and E.H. Shepard, and has never been out of print.

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