LETTERS TO THE MOUSE WHO TURNED INTO A TOAD...

Cover:  Watercolour by ERNEST H. SHEPARD.  (Private Collection)

Anyone who knows anything about The WIND In The WILLOWS will probably know that it started (like some other 'children's' classics, apparently) as a bedtime tale for the author's own offspring (in this case, Kenneth & Elspeth Grahame's only child, Alastair), and continued in a series of letters to him while holidaying separately from his parents with his governess in Littlehampton.  This was because the child, known as 'Mouse' didn't want to miss the animal adventures his father recounted to him each evening in order to get the restless infant off to sleep.

A page from one of the letters

These letters, thoughtfully preserved by the governess (Naomi Stott) and returned to the Grahames, became the basis of Kenneth's enduring classic of literature, loved by generations  of children (and adults) ever since it was first published in October 1908.  The above book reproduces all the letters, and makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the genesis of the finest story of its kind ever to appear in print.

Photo:  Alastair - by RICHARD SPEAIGHT

If not for Alastair, the Riverbank tale might never have been written, but, alas, there was no happy ending for the boy who was the template for Mr. TOAD.  A difficult, troubled lad, he suffered from poor health throughout his life (being born blind in one eye) and committed suicide two days before his 20th birthday by lying on railway tracks while an undergraduate at Oxford University.  Out of consideration and respect for his father, Alastair's death was officially recorded as accidental, but it was a tragic end to the mouse who inspired the most famous toad in the world.