The Reluctant Dragon

Kenneth Grahame was born in 1859. He grew up in Cookham Dene, Berkshire, in an idyllic country cottage. He went to school at St Edward's, Oxford. In 1899, he married Elspeth Thomson and their son Alastair was born in 1900. It was on the evening of his fourth birthday that Kenneth Grahame first told his son a story about moles and water rats. This story, The Wind in the Willows, was publishd in 1908. In 1931 Ernest H Shephard was asked to illustrate it, following his success with the illustrations in Winnie-the-Pooh and his original illustrations for The Reluctant Dragon. Kenneth Grahame died in 1932.