Kenneth Grahame (Author)

From Wikipedia: Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (Tuesday, 8 March 1859 – Wednesday, 6 July 1932) was a Scottish writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature, as well as The Reluctant Dragon. Both books were later adapted for stage and film, of which A. A. Milne's Toad of Toad Hall, based on part of The Wind in the Willows, was the first. Other adaptations include Cosgrove Hall Films' The Wind in the Willows (and its subsequent long-running television series), and the Walt Disney films (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and The Reluctant Dragon).

Personal life

Early life

Kenneth Grahame was born on Tuesday, 8 March 1859 in Edinburgh. When he was a little more than a year old, his father, an advocate, received an appointment as sheriff-substitute in Argyllshire, at Inveraray on Loch Fyne. When he was five, his mother died of scarlet fever, and his father, who had a drinking problem, assigned care of Kenneth, his brother Willie, his sister Helen and the new baby Roland to Granny Ingles, the children's maternal grandmother, in Cookham Dean in the village of Cookham in Berkshire.

There the children lived in a spacious, dilapidated house called The Mount, in expansive grounds, and were introduced to the riverside and boating by their uncle, David Ingles, who was a curate at Cookham Dean church. This ambience, particularly Quarry Wood and the River Thames, is believed by Grahame's biographer Peter Green to have inspired the setting for The Wind in the Willows.

Grahame was an outstanding pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford. In his early years there, no sports regimen had been established and the boys were free to explore the old city and its surroundings.

Career

Grahame wanted to attend Oxford University, but was not allowed to do so by his guardian on grounds of cost. Instead he was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 due to ill health, which may have been precipitated by a possibly political shooting incident at the bank in 1903. Grahame was shot at three times, but all the shots missed him.

An alternative explanation, given in a letter on display in the Bank museum, is that he had quarrelled with Walter Cunliffe, one of the bank's directors, who would later become Governor of the Bank of England, in the course of which he was heard to say that Cunliffe was "no gentleman". His retirement was enforced ostensibly on health grounds. He was awarded an annual pension of £400, but a worked example on display indicates he was actually due to receive £710.

Marriage and fatherhood

Kenneth Grahame (1859 – 1932) married Elspeth Thomson, the daughter of Robert William Thomson in 1899. They had one child, a boy named Alastair (nicknamed "Mouse"), who was born blind in one eye and plagued by health problems throughout a short life. On Grahame's retirement, the family returned to Cookham, his childhood home, where they lived at [Mayfield, now Herries Nursery and Preparatory School, Dean Lane, Cookham, Berkshire SL6 9BD 51.5633807, -0.7488039]. There Grahame produced bedtime stories that he told Alastair and turned into The Wind in the Willows. Alastair took his own life on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, five days before his 20th birthday on Friday, 7 May 1920. His demise was recorded as an accidental death out of respect for his father.

According to Cardiff University Professor Emeritus Peter Hunt, Grahame shared a house in London with a set designer, W. Graham Robertson, while Grahame's wife and son lived in Berkshire.

Death

Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. Grahame's cousin Anthony Hope, also a successful author, wrote him an epitaph: "To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on Wednesday, 6 July 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time." He was buried side by side with his son in the same grave.

Writing

While still a young man in his twenties, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette. Some of these were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893, and two years later The Golden Age. These were followed by Dream Days in 1898, which contains The Reluctant Dragon.

There is a ten-year gap between Grahame's penultimate book and the publication of his triumph, The Wind in the Willows. During that decade, Grahame became a father. The wayward, headstrong nature he saw in his little son Alastair he transformed into the swaggering Mr. Toad, one of its four principal characters. The character in the book known as Ratty was inspired by his good friend, and writer, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Grahame mentions this in a signed copy he gave to Quiller-Couch's daughter, Foy Felicia. Despite its success, he never attempted a sequel. The book is still widely enjoyed by adults and children. It has given rise to many film and television adaptations, while Toad remains one of the most celebrated and beloved characters in children's literature. In 1929, A. A. Milne wrote the play Toad of Toad Hall, which is based on part of The Wind in the Willows, which won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. In the 1990s, William Horwood produced a series of sequels.

Works

• Pagan Papers (1893)
• The Golden Age (1895)
• Dream Days (1898), including "The Reluctant Dragon" (1898)
• The Headswoman (1898)
• The Wind in the Willows (1908), later illustrated by E. H. Shepard
• Bertie's Escapade (1949), illustrated by E. H. Shepard

From Geni: 1859 03 08 Kenneth Grahame Birth.tif

• Tuesday, 8 March 1859 at 10:15
• Birth of Kenneth Grahame, male, at [32 Castle Street, Edinburgh EH2 3HT 55.9520671, -3.2035478] [NOTE: ERROR James Cunningham Grahame CORRECTED 4 July 1859: Kenneth Grahame]
• Son of James Cunningham Grahame, Advocate, and Elizabeth Johnstone Grahame, maiden surname: Ingles
• Informant James Cunningham Grahame, father
• Registered 19 March 1859 at Edinburgh by Thomas[?] Ord, Assistant Registrar, in the District of Saint Andrew in the Burgh of Edinburgh

From British Newspaper Archive: Glasgow Courier Saturday, 12 March 1859 Page 3 Births

Births: At 32 Castle Street, Edinburgh, on Tuesday, 8 March 1859 [inst.], the wife of James Cunningham Grahame, Esq., of a son.

From MyHeritage: James C Graham: 1861 Scotland Census (transcription only)

7 April 1861 Census for residents of Annfield Lodge, now The Coach House, Tarbert Road, Ardrishaig, Argyll and Bute PA30 8EP 56.006704, -5.451298, Lochgilphead, Argyllshire, Scotland

• James O Graham, head, married, male, aged 30 [born about 1831], in Old Monkland, Lanarkshire; Sheriff substitute of Argyllshire
• Elizabeth J Graham, wife, married, female, aged 24 [born about 1837], in Gibraltar
• Kenneth Graham, son, single, male, aged 2 [born about 1859], in Edinburgh, Midlothian
• 1 sibling, 1 uncle, 1 visitor, 5 servants

From FreeBMD: Registration of death of Kenneth Grahame in 1932

July to September 1932: Registration of death of Kenneth Grahame; aged 73 [born about 1859]; in Bradfield, Berkshire (Volume 2c, Page 343)

Kenneth Grahame 1859-1932. Author of Wind In The Willows

From British Newspaper Archive: Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer Friday, 8 July 1932 Page 10 Wind in the Willows

The death of Kenneth Grahame removes no public figure. He was an author born before the day of "Ballyhoo" or "self-advertisement." No one knew more of him than his name and his books, but "The Wind in the Willows," if not "The Golden Age," is reason enough to think with regret of the passing of a writer whom one imagined eternally young.

In days when childishness and child-literature have become a curious adult drug it is good to be reminded of an author who wrote at least one book for children without the subtle and profitable misapprehension that he was writing for grown-ups. "The Wind in the Willows" — and that, after all, is the best Kenneth Grahame — is a book for children, a book which wanders in a humanised animal world of rare delight, a world wholly fantastic, of wholly fantastic creatures who are justified by their difference from real animals and as much as their resemblance.

To write such a book may not be a great achievement, as greatness is truly reckoned, but it is not a common one. There are few enough children's books which are written well, with a quality of endurance. "Gulliver's Travels" were written for anyone save children. Their circulation among children is a most sardonic comment on Dean Swift's nature and satiric aims. "Robinson Crusoe" was a good yarn, but Defoe had no eye on the nursery. Lewis Carroll loved children, but was there no element in his work with more subtle intent than that of giving pleasure to the very young? One might well wonder if the incisive mathematician who described how

".... the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty"

was totally averse from satire. Many children's books, in short, have been made children's books by others than those who wrote them, but in "The Wind in the Willows" the purpose is unequivocal. It is a book for children, deliciously written by one who knew how to interest and hold the attention of a child. Good things can be said of "The Golden Age," but with reservations. Written about rather than for children, it ministers, in spite of its charm, to that escapist and dangerous desire, too common today, to evade adult realities in roseate recollections of childhood.

From British Newspaper Archive: Reading Standard Saturday, 27 August 1932 Page 15 Pangbourne: The late Mr. Kenneth Grahame

The body of Mr. Kenneth Grahame, the author of "The Wind in the Willows" and many other well-known stories, who died last month, was exhumed from its grave in Pangbourne churchyard in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 24 August 1932. It was removed by motor hearse for re-burial beside the grave of Mr. Kenneth Graham's son in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

Mr. and Mrs. Grahame's son, Alastair, was a 19-years-old undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, when in May, 1920, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances on the railway line near the town. A verdict of "Accidental death" was returned at the inquest.

From findagrave: Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)

• Name: Kenneth Grahame
• Born: Tuesday, 8 March 1859, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Died: Wednesday, 6 July 1932 (aged 73), Pangbourne, West Berkshire Unitary Authority, Berkshire, England
• Buried: [Holywell Cemetery, 10 St Cross Road, Oxford OX1 3TU 51.75625, -1.2479167], England
• Plot: [Southwest corner of churchyard near the wooden gate 51.7558441, -1.2478842]
• Inscription:
  • (East side:) Here was laid to rest on his 20th. birthday 12th. May 1920 Alastair Grahame only child of Kenneth & Elspeth Grahame of whose noble ideals steadfast purposes and rare promise remains only a loved & honoured memory.
  • And in 1932 his father Kenneth Grahame
  • (West side:) To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame husband of Elspeth and father of Alistair who passed the river on the 6th. of July 1932 leaving childhood & literature through him the more blest for all time
  • And of his son Alistair Grahame Commoner of Christ Church 1920
• Details: Headstone consists of Portland Stone, a type of limestone.
• About: Author. Remembered for his children's classic, "The Wind in the Willows" (1908). Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he was the third child of a lawyer from an old Scottish family. His father was an alcoholic, and when his mother died of scarlet fever, the children were raised by their maternal grandparents in the village of Cookham Dene, which later proved to be the setting of "The Wind in the Willows." After being educated at St. Edward's School in Oxford, Grahame began his career as a clerk for the Bank of England. He had wanted to attend Oxford University, but his grandparents could not afford it. To supplement his income, he began to write short stories for publication in various reading magazines, with his first stories about a group of orphaned children published in 1893. Many of his stories centred on a fictional family with five children whose adventures he had based upon his own childhood. His most famous short story, "The Reluctant Dragon" was published in 1898. Grahame was promoted to Bank Secretary, and in 1899 he married Elsbeth Thomson. Grahame wrote his famous classic, "The Wind in the Willows" in part as a series of letters to his only child, Alistair, finally combining the letters with more writings into a book in 1908. That same year, he retired from his bank work due to illness. His marriage had been an unhappy one, and when his only child committed suicide in 1918 while studying for his undergraduate degree at Oxford University, he stopped writing altogether. "The Wind in the Willows" was not an immediate success, but when playwright and author A. A. Milne (author of "Winnie the Pooh" fame) rewrote it for the stage as "Toad of Toad Hall" in 1930, it became very popular. Following Alistair's death, Grahame and his wife would spend long periods in Italy avoiding family and friends. He died at his home in Pangbourne, England, on Wednesday, 6 July 1932.

From Ancestry 19320908 probate Kenneth Grahame Church Cottage Pangbourne Berkshire d 19320706 pr London Public Trustee £41751

8 September 1932 probate of Kenneth Grahame, of Church Cottage, Pangbourne, Berkshire, who died 6 July 1932, at Church Cottage, testate, probate granted (will) at London on 8 September 1932 to Public Trustee, executor. Certified at Edinburgh 31 October 1932. Value of Estate: £41750 10s. 10d. Resworn £41897 13s. 2d.