Wind in the Willows (Musaicum Christmas Specials)

Kenneth Grahame

Dec 2020 · e-artnow

About this ebook

Musaicum Books presents the Musaicum Christmas Specials. We have selected the greatest Christmas novels, short stories and fairy tales for all those who want to keep the spirit of Christmas alive with a heartwarming tale. With the arrival of spring and fine weather outside, the good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning. He flees his underground home, emerging to take in the air and ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Rat (a water vole), who at this time of year spends all his days in, on and close by the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with Rat teaching Mole the ways of the river…. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie.

About the author

Kenneth Grahame, 1859 - 1932 Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh on March 3, 1859. He was the third of four children. When he was five years old, his mother died of scarlet fever and he nearly died himself, of the same disease. His father became an alcoholic and sent the children to Berkshire to live with relatives. They were later reunited with their father, but after a failed year, the children never heard from him again. Some time later, one of Grahame's brothers died at the age of fifteen. Grahame attended St. Edward's School as a child and intended to go on to Oxford University, but his relatives wanted him to go into banking. He worked in his uncle's office, in Westminster, for two years then went to work at the Bank of England as a clerk in 1879. He spent nearly thirty years there and became the Secretary of the Bank at the age of thirty-nine. Grahame retired from the bank right before "The Wind in the Willows" was published in 1908. Grahame wrote essays on topics that included smoking, walking and idleness. Many of the essays were published as the book "Pagan Papers" (1893) and the five orphan characters featured in the papers were developed into the books "The Golden Age" (1895) and "Dream Days" (1898). "The Wind in the Willows" (1908) was based on bedtime stories and letters to his son and it is where the characters Rat, Badger, Mole and Toad were created. In 1930, Milne's stage version was brought to another audience in "Toad of Toad Hall." On July 6, 1932, Kenneth Grahame died.