Kenneth Grahame: An Innocent in the Wild Wood

by Alison Prince

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Kenneth Grahame , paperback,

Genres: Biography

Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absorbing read, well researched and delivers a balanced view of the great Kenneth Grahame, his family, the pivotal events, people and places key in his life. The Wind in the Willows featured in my life from a young age; up there in my top 10 favourites and intertwined with my childhood memories. Yet I knew little of the author - if made to guess when written, before reading this, I would have placed it as written in the 1950's. Woefully late in that estimate! It remains a classic to me, timeless. The life that shaped the author and the circumstances brought this book forth from him are fascinating (no spoilers); I will seek out his earlier work as clearly this was hugely popular too. His seems a life largely well lived; a man who was his own person, but it was not without deep, and avoidable tragedy. For a portion of the book I disliked him - how a person so in tune with children, who retained such a strong sense of his own inner child, could mis-read and parent his own son so poorly seems unbelievable. Easy to comment and perhaps unfair given his wife Elspeth's influence too. Thoroughly recommend this - great read.

[Avril · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and deeply sad book. Prince draws heavily on two previous biographies of Grahame, although she argues that neither of them is reliable, and so there sometimes seems to be a lack of primary sources. I struggled a bit with Prince’s psychological assessments - there are times when she seems certain of what Grahame, his wife and his son were thinking and feeling and, again, there just doesn’t seem to be the primary material to support her assertions, no matter how plausible they are. But this is an interesting biography and it’s sent me back to Wind in the Willows with new interest.

[Mick Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

a stodgy book skirting around certain subjects and making both elspeth and Kenneth look like slightly challenged in their behaviour as for their son seems like another victim of their self absorption.