= Kenneth_Grahame =

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= Kenneth_Grahame =
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Introduction
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Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 - 6 July 1932) was a British writer.
He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature 'The
Wind in the Willows' (1908). Born in Scotland, he spent most of his
childhood with his grandmother in England, following the death of his
mother and his father's inability to look after the children. After
attending St Edward's School in Oxford, his ambition to attend
university was thwarted and he joined the Bank of England, where he
had a successful career. Before writing 'The Wind in the Willows', he
published three other books: 'Pagan Papers' (1893), 'The Golden Age'
(1895), and 'Dream Days' (1898).

Early life
============
Grahame was born on 8 March 1859 at 32 Castle Street in Edinburgh. His
parents were James Cunningham Grahame (1830-1887), advocate, and
Elizabeth Ingles (1837-1864). When Grahame was a little more than a
year old, his father was appointed as sheriff-substitute in
Argyllshire, and the family moved to Inveraray on Loch Fyne with
Grahame, his older sister, Helen, and his older brother, Thomas
William (known as Willie). In March 1864, Grahame's younger brother,
Roland, was born and the following month Grahame's mother died of
scarlet fever. Grahame contracted the disease and was seriously ill.
Although he recovered, he was left vulnerable to chest infections for
the rest of his life.

After their mother's death, the four children were sent to live with
their maternal grandmother at The Mount, a large house in extensive
grounds in Cookham Dean in Berkshire, while their grieving father
remained in Scotland and took to drink. Also living at The Mount was
Grahame's uncle David Ingles, who was the curate at the local church
and took the children boating on the River Thames at nearby Bisham.
The children were supported financially by Grahame's paternal uncle,
John Grahame, who was a parliamentary agent in London. In the spring
of 1866, after the collapse of a chimney at The Mount, the children
moved with their grandmother to Fernhill Cottage in Cranbourne. Later
that year, Grahame's father recalled the children to Scotland but the
arrangement did not work out and the children returned to Cranbourne
in 1867, while their father resigned his post in Scotland, went to
live in France and had no further contact with his children.

In 1868, when he was nine years old, Grahame became a boarder at the
recently established St Edward's School in Oxford. He was successful
at school both academically and in sport, winning prizes for divinity
and Latin in 1874 and the sixth form prize in 1875, captaining the
rugby fifteen, and becoming head boy. Holidays were spent at
Cranbourne or with his naval commander uncle, Jack Ingles, and his
children in Portsmouth and London. It was during a Christmas holiday
in London in 1875 that Grahame's brother, Willie, died of a chest
infection.

Career
========
While he was at school, Grahame dreamt of attending Oxford University,
but his uncle, John Grahame, was opposed to the idea and refused to
finance it. Instead, Grahame began work as a clerk in his uncle's firm
of parliamentary agents Grahame, Currie and Spens. While working in
the Westminster office, he lodged with another uncle, Robert Grahame,
in Fulham, joined the London Scottish Volunteers and, having met
Frederick James Furnivall in a Soho restaurant, became a member of the
New Shakspere Society.

On 1 January 1879, aged nineteen, Grahame entered the Bank of England
in Threadneedle Street in the City of London as a "gentleman clerk".
He would stay at the Bank for nearly thirty years, working his way up
to become its youngest Secretary (one of the Bank's three highest
officers) at the age of thirty-nine. In the entrance examination to
become a clerk, Grahame had scored the highest marks of his intake,
and became the only candidate to score 100 percent in the English
Essay paper. To be nearer his work, Grahame took lodgings in
Bloomsbury Street, which he later shared with his brother Roland, who
also worked at the Bank. In 1882 he moved into a flat in Chelsea,
where he lived on his own and caught the ferry to work. In 1884, he
became a volunteer at Toynbee Hall, working with impoverished youths
from the East End of London. Summer holidays with his sister, Helen,
were spent in Cornwall and Italy, both places which would remain
favourite destinations throughout his life.

Grahame's work at the Bank left him time to pursue his literary
interests. He had been jotting down his thoughts in prose and poetry
in a bank ledger, but it was not until 1887 that he started to submit
stories and essays to periodicals. His first published piece appeared
in 'St James's Gazette' in December 1888. He was then invited to
become a regular contributor to the 'National Observer' by its editor,
the poet William Ernest Henley, who tried to persuade him to give up
his position with the Bank and become a full-time writer. In 1893 he
encouraged Grahame to send a collection of his short stories and
essays to John Lane at The Bodley Head publishers. The collection was
published with the title 'Pagan Papers' and illustrations by Aubrey
Beardsley and was well received by critics. Grahame was now in demand
as a writer, and became a regular contributor to The Bodley Head
periodical, The Yellow Book. In 1894, Grahame took out a lease on a
house in the Kensington Crescent (now demolished) in Kensington, which
he shared with another writer, Tom Greg, until the latter's marriage,
and housekeeper Sarah Bath.

'The Golden Age', published in 1895, was a collection of stories about
four children being brought up by aunts and uncles referred to as the
Olympians. Some of the chapters had already been published in 'Pagan
Papers' while most had appeared in the 'National Observer' and other
periodicals. The book made Grahame famous and established him as a
leading authority on childhood. The poet Algernon Swinburne said the
book was "well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise". A sequel, 'Dream
Days' followed in 1898, the year that Grahame was appointed Secretary
to the Bank of England. 'Dream Days' included stories published in
periodicals over the past four years; a new story was 'The Reluctant
Dragon'.

In 1897, Grahame met Elspeth (Elsie) Thomson, the daughter of Robert
William Thomson and sister of Courtauld Thomson. Elsie had written a
novel, as well as plays and poems. Having lost both her parents, she
was living in Onslow Square with her stepfather John Fletcher Moulton
who was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. Grahame and Elsie
married on 22 July 1899, at the Church of St Fimbarrus, Fowey,
Cornwall. Grahame had been recovering from pneumonia with his friend
Arthur Quiller Couch and family in Fowey. The best man at the wedding
was Grahame's cousin, the writer Anthony Hope. Grahame's sister,
Helen, disapproved of the marriage, thinking the couple were
temperamentally unsuited to each other, and the brother and sister
became estranged. The couple set up home in Durham Villas (now
Phillimore Place) in Kensington, where their only child, Alastair
(nicknamed Mouse) was born prematurely in 1900 with a congenital
cataract that left him blind in one eye. Grahame told his son bedtime
stories about a mole, beaver, and water-rat, and the letters he wrote
when Alastair was holidaying with his nanny in Littlehampton in 1907
while his parents were in Falmouth, Cornwall, included stories about a
toad. These stories about animals have been seen as the source for
'The Wind in the Willows'.

In 1903, Grahame had a narrow escape when a man entered the Bank of
England and took three shots at him with a revolver, missing each
time. The man, George Frederick Robinson, was overpowered and
arrested. After a trial at the Old Bailey in which he was found guilty
but insane, he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital. Grahame never
completely recovered from the trauma and it may have contributed to
his early retirement from the Bank.

Retirement and later life
===========================
Grahame retired from the Bank in 1908, aged forty-nine, ostensibly on
the grounds of ill-health. In his resignation letter, Grahame stated
that his health was being affected by his work. A different
explanation for Grahame's retirement was offered by a former
colleague, W. Marston Acres, who wrote in 1950 that Grahame's
resentment of the bullying manner of a director during a discussion
about official business provoked him into accusing the director of
being "no gentleman". Marston Acres believed the director in question
to be Walter Cunliffe who would later become Governor of the Bank of
England. On leaving the Bank, Grahame was awarded an annual pension of
£400, although he could have expected to receive £710. In 1906, he had
taken out a lease on a house called Mayfield (later Herries
Preparatory School) in Cookham Dean, close to where he grew up.

'The Wind in the Willows' was published in 1908, four months after the
author's resignation from the Bank. Rejected at first by 'Everybody's
Magazine' in the United States and by Grahame's usual publishers,
Bodley Head, the book was eventually published in the United Kingdom
by Methuen, with an American edition released by Scribner. Reviews
were generally unfavourable; a reviewer in 'The Times' wrote:
"Grown-up readers will find it monstruous and elusive, children will
hope, in vain, for more fun". A rare positive review appeared in
'Vanity Fair' where Richard Middleton wrote that it was "the best book
ever written for children and one of the best written for adults". The
book sold well and continued to sell well, reaching 100 editions in
the United Kingdom in 1951. In 1910, the Grahames moved from Cookham
Dean to a farmhouse, Boham's, in the village of Blewbury near Oxford.

Grahame's son Alastair flourished at The Old Malthouse School but went
on to have brief, and less happy, experiences at Rugby School and Eton
College before having lessons with a private tutor to prepare for the
University of Oxford. During World War I, Grahame did war work in the
village, setting up a factory for surgical supplies, while Alastair
was rejected for active service, probably on account of his poor
eyesight, and went up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1918. On 7 May 1920,
Alastair's body was found on the railway line near a level crossing in
Oxford. Although the jury at the inquest returned a verdict of
accidental death, rumours of suicide persisted. He was buried in
Holywell Cemetery in Oxford on 12 May 1920, his twentieth birthday.

Following the death of their son, Grahame and Elsie went to Italy and
spent several years travelling. When they returned to England, they
settled at Church Cottage in the village of Pangbourne, where Grahame
died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 6 July 1932. He was buried at the
Church of St James the Less in Pangbourne, with his body later being
removed to Holywell cemetery to be buried with Alastair. Grahame's
cousin, Anthony Hope, wrote his epitaph: "To the beautiful memory of
Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed
the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature
through him the more blest for all time." Elsie survived him by
fourteen years. Grahame bequeathed the royalties from his works to the
Bodleian Library, which also holds his archive.

File:Kenneth Grahame 16 Phillimore Place blue plaque.jpg|Blue plaque,
16 Phillimore Place, London, home during 1901-1908
File:Kenneth_Grahame_his_gravestone.jpg|Grahame's headstone in
Holywell Cemetery, Oxford
File:Grave of Kenneth Grahame at Holywell.jpg|Alastair Grahame's grave
at Holywell Cemetery, Oxford

Works
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* 'Pagan Papers' (1894)
* 'The Golden Age' (1895)
* 'The Headswoman' (1898)
* 'Dream Days' (1898), including "The Reluctant Dragon"
* 'The Wind in the Willows' (1908), later illustrated by E. H. Shepard
* 'First Whisper of "The Wind in the Willows"' (1944), a collection of
Grahame's letters to his small son, published by his widow Elspeth
Grahame

Further reading
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* Alison Prince: 'Kenneth Grahame: An Innocent in the Wild Wood',
London: Allison & Busby, 1994,
* Jackie Wullschläger: 'Inventing Wonderland: The Lives of Lewis
Carroll, Edward Lear, J. M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A. A. Milne',
London: Methuen, 2001,

External links
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*
*
*
*
'[https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/the-original-wind-in-the-willows
The original Wind in the Willows]' - Bodleian Library online
exhibition
*
'[http://david-gooderson.co.uk/stage-plays/the-killing-of-mr-toad.php
The Killing of Mr Toad]' - play by David Gooderson about 'The Wind in
the Willows' and the author's family
* [http://oxonblueplaques.org.uk/plaques/grahame.html Plaque to
Kenneth Grahame at Blewbury] (Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board)
*

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=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grahame