Kenneth Grahame (March 8, 1859 - July 6, 1932) was an English novelist.

Grahame was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for writing The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature and originally written for his son who shared the waywardness of Toad of Toad Hall (a principal character).

Grahame was orphaned as a child and went to live with his grandmother in England. He attended St. Edward's School in Oxford but could not afford to attend university. He worked at the Bank of England until retiring in 1907 due to ill health.

He died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, England and is burried in the churchyard of Hollywell church Oxford.

From The Writer's Almanac for Tuesday, March 8, 2005:

It's the birthday of essayist and children's author Kenneth Grahame, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1859), known today for his book The Wind in the Willows (1908), which began as a series of stories he told to his young son.

Grahame had a difficult life. His mother died when he was five years old, and he was passed around among relatives in England. He wanted to go to college, but his uncle refused to pay for it, so he got a job as a clerk at a bank. He began writing essays and stories on the side, and in 1895, he published two books of stories about children: The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898), which were very popular in England and the United States.

But when he wrote The Wind in the Willows, many publishers turned it down because the idea of talking animals was too fantastic. At the time, Victorian educators believed that children should be discouraged as soon as possible from pretending and daydreaming, that letting children believe in fairy tales and myths was detrimental to their development. Grahame believed the opposite.

It was finally Teddy Roosevelt, a huge fan of Grahame's early work, who convinced a publisher to take on The Wind in the Willows. It became such a success that Grahame was able to retire from the Bank of England and move to the country. He lived for another 25 years, but he never wrote another book.

The Wind in the Willows still sells about 80,000 copies a year.

Bibliography

• Pagan Papers (1893)(Gutenberg text)
• The Golden Age (1895) (Gutenberg text)
• Dream Days (1898) (Gutenberg text)
• The Wind in the Willows (1908) (Gutenberg text)

External links

• Project Gutenberg e-texts of some of Kenneth Grahame's works
• Kenneth Grahame: an appreciation of The Wind in the Willows