Kenneth Grahame was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature, as well as The Reluctant Dragon. Both books were later adapted for stage and film. While still a young man in his twenties, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette. Some of these were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893, and two years later The Golden Age. These were followed by Dream Days in 1898, which contains The Reluctant Dragon. Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.
“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.” British writer Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows features a clutch of linked animal tales that began as a series of bedtime stories for his son. This children’s book, first published in 1908, remains a classic. The well-crafted tales in The Wind in the Willows are animated by beautiful descriptions of the English countryside. The stories revolve around several animal friends and neighbours including Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger. The main characters talk, think, and behave like humans while retaining their essential animal habits. The action is flagged off by Mole’s decision to head to the riverbank one day instead of going about his spring cleaning. The Wind in the Willows was successfully adapted for the stage and screen numerous times. It was dramatised as Toad of Toad Hall by well-known British writer A.A. Milne in 1929 and became a frequently performed Christmas play.
