Much of the following Smellygraf piece is some journo's re-hash of a biography, "Beyond The Wild Wood", written by Peter Green and published in 1959 (reprinted in 1983, in a larger format with extra photos). A very fine, thorough, psychologically insightful and modern biography by a fine scholar and Classicist (who also happened to attend my old school). I have owned a copy since the early 1990s and have read it a few times. For those of you have haven't and who would like to know more about Kenneth Grahame, the man who wrote The Wind In The Willows (published in 1908 - it's the book's centenary, then, this year), here is the said SmellyG piece. The Henley River and Rowing Museum, I see, is doing a Willows exhibition, too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/10/sv_windinthewillows.xml
Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood
Telegraph 10/02/2008
The Wind in the Willows is a hymn to Old England. But for its author, it meant much more than that. A hundred years after its publication, John Preston explores the private torments that inspired Kenneth Grahame to write his classic...........................
