The Wind in the Willows

For other uses, see The Wind in the Willows (disambiguation).

The Wind in the Willows

Cover of the first edition
Author	Kenneth Grahame
Language	English
Genre	Children's literature
Publisher	Methuen
Publication date	1908
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	302 pp
ISBN	NA

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.

It can also be viewed as a commentary on class dynamics in British society. In general the 'river bankers' represented the upper classes and the 'wild wooders' represented the lower classes. More specifically the character of Toad represented the upper class; Rat and Badger represented the middle classes, with Badger leaning closer to upper class; and the character Mole represented the lower class, due to his earthy nature.

Synopsis

At the start of the book, it is spring, the weather is fine, and good-natured Mole goes outside to take the air. He ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Rat, who spends all his days in and around the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and the two of them spend many more days on the river, with Rat teaching Mole the ways of the river.

Some time later, one summer day, Rat and Mole find themselves near Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich, jovial and friendly, but conceited, and tends to become obsessed about things, only to dismiss them later. Having given up boating, Toad's current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. In fact, he is about to go on a trip, and persuades Rat and Mole to join him. A few days later, a passing car scares their horse, causing the caravan to crash. This marks the end of Toad's craze for caravan travel, to be replaced with an obsession for cars.

Mole wants to meet Badger, who lives in the Wild Wood, but Rat knows that Badger does not appreciate visits. On a winter's day, Mole goes to the Wild Wood, to explore and hoping to meet Badger. Mole gets lost in the woods. Rat goes looking for Mole, and finds him, but it starts to snow and even Rat no longer knows the way home. By chance they arrive at Badger's home.

Badger welcomes Rat and Mole to his large home, and gives them food and dry clothes. Badger learns from Rat and Mole that Toad has crashed six cars and has been hospitalized three times, and has had to spend a fortune on fines. They decide they should do something to protect Toad from himself, since they are, after all, his friends.

Some months later, Badger visits Mole and Rat to do something about Toad's self-destructive obsession. The three of them go to visit Toad, and Badger tries talking him out of his behaviour, to no avail. They decide to put Toad under house arrest, with themselves as the guards, until Toad changes his mind. Feigning illness, Toad manages to escape, and steals a car. He is caught and sent to prison on a twenty year sentence.

Rat visits his old friend Otter and finds out that Otter's son is missing. Rat and Mole set out to find Otter's son. They receive help from the God Pan who leads them to the location of the missing child. Pan removes their memories of this meeting "lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure".

In prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the jailor's daughter, who helps him to escape. This involves disguising Toad as a washerwoman. Having escaped, Toad is without any possessions and pursued by the police, but he shakes off his pursuers with the help of the driver of a steam train.

Still disguised as a washerwoman, Toad comes across a horse-drawn boat. After lying about being a capable washerwoman to the owner of the boat, who offers him a lift in exchange for his laundry services, he gets into a fight with her, steals her horse and sells it to a traveller. He stops a passing car, which happens to be one he stole earlier. However, the owners don't recognize him in disguise, and give him a lift. Toad asks if he can drive, which of course quickly leads to an accident. He flees and by chance arrives at Rat's house.

Toad hears from Rat that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels, stoats and ferrets, despite attempts to protect and recover it by Mole and Badger. Although upset at the loss of his house, Toad realizes what good friends he has, and how badly he has behaved. Badger, Rat, Mole and Toad enter Toad Hall via a secret entrance and drive away the intruders.

Toad makes up for his earlier wrongdoings by seeking out those he wronged and compensating them. The four friends live out their lives happily ever after.

Characters

Main characters

• Mole - a mild mannered, home-loving animal, and the first character to which the reader is introduced. Originally overawed by the hustle and bustle of riverside life, he eventually adapts.
• Ratty (the European Water Vole) - relaxed and friendly, he loves the river and takes Mole under his wing.
• Mr. Toad - the wealthiest character and owner of Toad Hall. Although good-natured, Toad is impulsive, self-satisfied and conceited. He is prone to obsessions and crazes, such as punting, houseboating, and horse-drawn caravans, each of which in turn he becomes bored with and drops. Eventually he discovers motor-cars, and after a series of accidents is imprisoned for theft, dangerous driving and impertinence to the rural police. Several chapters of the book chronicle his escape, disguised as a washer-woman. His friends eventually reform him and win back Toad Hall, which has been usurped by the weasels, stoats and ferrets in his absence.
• Mr. Badger - A gruff but kindly and solitary figure who 'simply hates society'. He can be seen as a wise hermit, a good leader and gentleman, embodying common sense.

Other Characters

• Otter - a friend of Ratty
• Portly - son of Otter
• The Magistrate
• The Court Clerk
• The Gaoler
• The Gaoler's Daughter - Helps Toad escape from prison
• The Engine Driver
• The Barge Woman
• The Gypsy
• The Chief Weasel - he and a band of weasels, stoats, and ferrets plot to take over Toad Hall
• The god Pan - makes a single and anomalous appearance in Chapter 7, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• The Wayfarer; a vagabond water vole (water rat), who also makes a single appearance
• Inhabitants of the 'Wild Wood':
  • Weasels, stoats and foxes and so on: described by Ratty to Mole as: 'They're all right in a way - I'm very good friends with them - pass the time of day when we meet, and all that - but they break out sometimes, there's no denying it, and then - well, you can't really trust them, and that's the fact.'
  • The squirrels - in Ratty's opinion are all right.
  • The rabbits - Ratty thinks some of them are all right, but 'rabbits are a mixed lot' and they are portrayed in the book as being quite dim-witted.

Illustrated and Comic editions

The book was originally published without illustrations. Over the years, many illustrated versions have appeared. The most popular are probably E. H. Shepard's, originally published in 1931. They are believed to be authorized, as Grahame was pleased with the initial sketches, but he did not live to see the completed work.

The Folio Society edition published in 2006 features 85 illustrations, 35 in colour, by Charles van Sandwyk.

Michel Plessix created a Wind in the Willows comic book series, which helped to introduce the stories to France. They have been published into English by Cinebook Ltd.

Film, TV, or theatrical adaptations

William Horwood created several sequels to The Wind in the Willows:

• The Willows in Winter
• Toad Triumphant
• The Willows and Beyond
• The Willows at Christmas

There have been a number of stage adaptations, including:

• Toad of Toad Hall by A. A. Milne, produced in 1929.
• Wind in the Willows a Tony-nominated Broadway musical starring Nathan Lane, 1985.
• The Wind in the Willows by Alan Bennett (who also appeared as Mole) in 1991.
• Mr. Toad's Mad Adventures by Vera Morris.
• Wind in the Willows (UK National Tour) by Ian Billings
• Paul Elsam's 1998 stage production of Alan Bennett's version, Yorkshire Coast College.

There are several film and television versions of The Wind in the Willows, notably including:

• a 1949 animated version by Walt Disney, one-half of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
• a 1983 animated film version with stop-motion puppets, The Wind in the Willows by Cosgrove Hall. The film was followed by an ongoing television series, The Wind in the Willows (1984-1990) done in the same style - possibly the most faithful adaptation. There were a host of famous names in the cast, including David Jason, Sir Michael Hordern, Peter Sallis and Ian Carmichael.
• a 1987 animated musical film version for television, produced by Rankin/Bass productions. This version was very faithful to the book and featured a number of original songs, including the title, "Wind in the Willows," performed by folk singer Judy Collins. Voice actors included Roddy McDowell as Ratty and Charles Nelson Reilly as Toad.
• a 1996 animated version with a cast led by Michael Palin and Alan Bennett as Ratty and Mole and Rik Mayall as Toad; followed by an adaptation of The Willows in Winter produced by the now defunct TVC (Television Cartoons) in London.
• a 1996 live-action version of The Wind in the Willows, written and directed by Terry Jones, also known in the U.S. as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
• a 2006 live-action television adaptation with Lee Ingleby as Mole, Mark Gatiss as Ratty, Matt Lucas as Toad, Bob Hoskins as Badger, and also featuring Imelda Staunton, Anna Maxwell Martin and Mary Walsh. This version debuted in Canada on CBC Television on December 18, 2006, in the United Kingdom on BBC1 on January 1, 2007, and in the U.S. on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre on April 8, 2007.

Kenneth Williams also did a version of the book for radio.

Jan Needle's Wild Wood was published in 1981 with illustrations by William Rushton (ISBN 0-233-97346-X). It is a re-telling of the story of The Wind in the Willows from the point of view of the working-class inhabitants of the Wild Wood. For them, money is short and employment hard to find. They have a very different perspective on the wealthy, easy, careless lifestyle of Toad and his friends. Some of the smallest incidents in the original story are given a new significance in this one - the narrator of Wild Wood loses his much-needed job as Toad's chauffeur when Badger, Mole and Rat decide to stop Toad's driving. The climax of the book comes when Toad goes to prison: the stoats and weasels take over Toad Hall and turn it into a socialist collective called Brotherhood Hall. This re-writing could be seen as a commentary on the dramatic changes to British society with the coming to power of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Trivia

• Mapledurham House in Berkshire is one role model for Toad Hall
• The first album by psychedelic rock group Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), was named after Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows. However, the songs on the album are not directly related to the contents of the book.
• The same chapter was the basis for the name of "Piper at the Gates of Dawn", a song by Irish singer-song writer Van Morrison from his 1997 album The Healing Game.
• Mr. Toad was voted #38 among the 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 by Book magazine in their March/April 2002 issue.
• The village of Lerryn, Cornwall lays claim to being the setting for the book
• Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is the name of a ride at Disneyland, inspired by Toad's motorcar adventure.
• "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" is the name of an instrumental piece by the American soul band Tower Of Power. The song appears on their 1991 album Monster on a Leash.
• There is a theory that the idea for the story arose when its author saw a water vole beside the River Pang in Berkshire, southern England. A 29 hectare extension to the nature reserve at Moor Copse, near Tidmarsh Berkshire, was acquired in January 2007 by the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust
• An extract from "The Wind in the Willows" has been included in the 2006/2007 Journeys Stimulus Booklet studied by all school students in their final year of secondary schooling in New South Wales, Australia as part of the compulsory English (Standard) and English (Advanced) course.

See also

• River Thames
• Kenneth Grahame

External links

Sources

• The Wind in the Willows, available from Internet Archive, illustrated by Paul Bransom (1913).
• The Wind in the Willows at Project Gutenberg, plain text.
• Librivox audio recordings can be found here, here and here.

Other

• The Wind in the Willows at the River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames