The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame

2010年1月 · LA CASE Books

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この電子書籍について

The Wind in the Willows is a children's novel by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animals in a pastoral version of England.

The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley. In 1908 Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England.

He moved back to Cookham, Berkshire, where he had been brought up and spent his time by the River Thames doing much as the animal characters in his book do—namely, as one of the phrases from the book says, "simply messing about in boats"—and wrote down the bed-time stories he had been telling his son Alistair.

著者について

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.