The Wind in the Willows
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature written in 1908 by Kenneth Grahame.
The story is alternately slow moving and fast paced, focusing on four heavily anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie.
The book made Grahame's fortune, enabling him to retire from his hated (though respectable and well paid) bank job and move to the country. Grahame spent his time by the River Thames doing much as the animal characters in his book do; namely (in one of the most famous phrases from the book) 'simply messing about in boats'. The book was saved from obscurity by the then famous playwright, A. A. Milne, who loved the book and adapted it for stage in Toad of Toad Hall.
