The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame.

The book made Kenneth Grahame's fortune, enabling him to retire from his hated (though respectable and well-paid) bank job and retire to the country, pretty much doing what the animal characters in this book do.

The story is alternately slow-moving and fast-paced, centering on three middle-aged male characters in bucolic England. It had illustrations by E. H. Shepard.

Table of contents
1 Characters
2 Adaptations and spin-offs
3 External link

Characters

  • Mole -- mild-mannered
  • Water Rat (or Ratty) -- loves the river
  • Otter -- friend of Ratty
  • Portly -- son of Otter
  • Badger -- powerful yet solitary
  • Toad -- mischievous estate-owner
  • The Magistrate
  • The Court Clerk
  • The Gaoler
  • The Gaoler's Daughter
  • The Engine Driver
  • The Barge Woman
  • The Gypsy
  • The Chief Weasel
  • Pan -- makes a single, otherwise anomalous, appearance

Adaptations and spin-offs

William Horwood created several sequels to The Wind in the Willows:
  • The Willows in Winter
  • Toad Triumphant
  • The Willows and Beyond

A. A. Milne adapted The Wind in the Willows into a play called Toad of Toad Hall.

There are several film and television versions of The Wind in the Willows, notably including:

  • a 1949 animated version by Walt Disney
  • a 1983 animated (with stop-motion puppets, not drawings) version by Cosgrove Hall, which was followed by an ongoing television series done in the same style
  • a 1996 animated version with an all-star cast led by Michael Palin and Alan Bennett as Ratty and Mole; followed by an adaptation of The Willows in Winter
  • a 1996 live-action version written and directed by Terry Jones

External link