Unlike Toad’s recuperative ending, however, Alastair’s story did not end happily. His concerned friends must intervene to restrain his whims, teaching him “to be a sensible toad”. But when the daredevil, Toad, takes up motoring, he becomes entranced by wild fantasies of the road. In peaceful retreat from “The Wide World”, Rat, Mole, Badger, and Toad spend their days chatting, philosophising, pottering, and ruminating on the latest fashions and fads. In the story, a quartet of anthropomorphised male animals wander freely in a pastoral land of leisure and pleasure - closely resembling the waterside haven of Cookham Dean where Grahame himself grew up.
#Wandering willows pet list series#
The Wind in the Willows evolved from Alastair’s bedtime tales into a series of letters Grahame later sent his son while on holiday in Littlehampton. His rapture in the fantastic was later confirmed by his nurse, who recalled hearing Kenneth “up in the night-nursery, telling Master Mouse some ditty or other about a toad”.
Small, squinty, and beset by health problems, he was bullied at school. Like several classics penned during the golden age of children’s literature, The Wind in the Willows was written with a particular child in mind.Īlastair Grahame was four years old when his father Kenneth - then a secretary at the Bank of England - began inventing bedtime stories about the reckless ruffian, Mr Toad, and his long-suffering friends: Badger, Rat, and Mole.Īlastair, born premature and partially blind, was nicknamed “Mouse”.
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