Kenneth Grahame

The Wind in the Willows Illustrated Kenneth Grahame

The Wind in the Willows is a children's book by British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternatingly slow-moving and fast-paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animals: Mole, Rat (a European water vole), Toad, and Badger. They live in a pastoral version of Edwardian England. In 1908 Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved back to Berkshire, where he had lived as a child, and spent his time by the River Thames, doing much as the animal characters in his book do - to quote, "simply messing about in boats" - and expanding the bedtime stories he had earlier told his son Alastair into a manuscript for the book.