Novel
The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame · 1908
Opening lines
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
A mole abandons her great spring cleaning, comes up out of the ground and discovers the river, which she had never seen. A water rat teaches her to row and takes her in. In the heart of the Wild Wood lives a badger on his own, and in a manor a rich toad is enthusiastic about everything that comes along: boating, the houseboat, the caravan, then the motor car. His friends decide to shut him up at home for his own good.
Context
The book grew out of stories told in the evening to a child, then out of letters sent to him in 1907 while father and son were separated; they had been kept. Several publishers refused it, and critics received it badly, disappointed that it did not resemble the author's books on childhood and not knowing whom it was addressed to. In January 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to the author that he had read it again and again and now regarded its characters as old friends. In 1929, A. A. Milne drew a play from it that became a Christmas show. The child for whom it was intended died in 1920 on a railway line near Oxford.
Who it is for
Twelve chapters that alternate farce and reverie; translated into French as early as 1935 and retranslated in 2021.
Prizes and reception
Poorly received on its publication, it counted more than a hundred British editions by 1951 and has sold millions of copies.
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