Eternal Boy: The Life of Kenneth Grahame - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786697742 ISBN 13: 9781786697745

Synopsis

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR.

'Matthew Dennison skilfully covers the facts, producing a vivid impression of this strange, shy, awkward figure. The result is a highly readable book' Literary Review.
'A haunting new biography ... A compelling account of Grahame's life' Daily Mail.
'A sensitively probing and nuanced portrait that makes sense of the darker character furled in the dreamer' New Statesman.

During the week Kenneth Grahame sat behind a mahogany desk as Secretary of the Bank of England; at the weekend he retired to the house in the country he shared with his fanciful wife Elspeth and fragile son Alistair and took lengthy walks along the Thames in Berkshire, 'tempted [by] the treasures of hedge and ditch; the rapt surprise of the first lords-and-ladies, the rustle of a field-mouse, the splash of a frog.'

The result of these pastoral wanderings was The Wind in the Willows: an enduring classic of children's literature; a cautionary tale for adult readers; a warning of the fragility of the English countryside; and an expression of fear at threatened social changes that, in the aftermath of the World War I, became reality. Like its remarkable author, it balances maverick tendencies with conservatism. Grahame was an Edwardian pantheist whose work has a timeless appeal, an escapist whose withdrawal from reality took the form of time travel into his own past.

About this title

Review:

'[Dennison] skilfully covers the facts, producing a vivid impression of this strange, shy, awkward figure. The result is a highly readable book' Literary Review.

'Heartbreaking biography' The Times.

'Drawing on telling quotes from Grahame's works, Dennison's book more than meets the challenge of a walled-off man. The result is a sensitively probing and nuanced portrait that makes sense of the darker character furled in the dreamer' New Statesman.

'Eternal Boy tells me much I didn't know. It is a very deftly written biography, snappy, thorough and to the point' Mail on Sunday.

'A haunting new biography ... Compelling' Daily Mail.

'Dennison, in this finely written book with its sometimes bejewelled vocabulary [...] has dug deep into some of the complex truths that underpin The Wind in the Willows and give it its layers of resonance' Simon Callow, Sunday Times.

'Fine new biography ... Dennison also writes with atmospheric detail' Herald.

'Dennison, who has been lauded for his biographies of Vita Sackville-West and Beatrix Potter, maps the life of The Wind in the Willows author' --This is England.

'A halcyon imagining on the part of a man trapped within a loveless marriage and desk-bound as a senior official at the Bank of England: a gorgeous template for a life he was unable to lead' --The Daily Telegraph.

'Dennison's sensitive, but astute new biography transforms the facts of Grahame's life some that are well known, others fresh into eloquent truths about a man who refused to grow up' --Country Life.

Book Description:

The story of Kenneth Grahame, author of the children's classic Wind in the Willows, and of the vision of English pastoral that inspired it.

About this edition

• ISBN 10: 1786697742
• ISBN 13: 9781786697745
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304