Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows A Children's Classic at 100

by Horne, Jackie C.; White, Donna R.

• ISBN13: 9780810872585
• ISBN10: 0810872587
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-25
• Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Summary

In 1908, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows was published to surprisingly little critical fanfare. Nonetheless, readers championed its cause, and Graham's novel of riverbank life soon proved both a commercial-and ultimately critical-success. One hundred years after its first publication, Grahame's book and its memorable characters continue their hold on the public imagination and have taken their place in the canon of children's literature. However, little academic criticism emerged in the wake of the book's initial publication. Only after the appearance of Peter Green's biocritical study did academics begin to wrestle with Graham's complex work, although many read it in terms of the author's often unhappy personal life.

Author Biography

Jackie C. Horne is a former children's book editor who has taught undergraduate and graduate courses as assistant professor at the Center for the Study Children's Literature, Simmons College. Donna R White is associate professor of English at Arkansas Tech University. She is the coeditor of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan In and Out of Time: A Children's Classic at 100 (Scarecrow, 2006).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction
Competing Discourses	p. 1
Deus ex Natura or Nonstick Pan?: Competing Discourses in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows	p. 3
Techne, Technology, and Disenchantment in The Wind in the Willows	p. 23
"Up [and Down and Back and Forth] We Go!": Dialogic and Carnivalesque Qualities in the Wind in the Willows	p. 43
It's a Mole-Eat-Hare World: The River Bank, the School, and the Colony	p. 67
A Contemporary Psychological Understanding of Mr. Toad and His Relationships in The Wind in the Willows	p. 87
Representations of the Edwardian Age	p. 109
"Animal-Etiquette" and Edwarelian Manners in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows	p. 111
Locating Englishness within the Commodity Culture of the Early Twentieth Century in the Wind in the Willows	p. 135
Animal Boys, Aspiring Aesthetes, and Differing Masculinities: Aestheticism Revealed in The Wind in the Willows	p. 157
Beyond the Text	p. 187
The Wind Blows to the East: On Chinese Translations of Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows	p. 189
The Pursuit of Pleasure in The Wind in the Willows and Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad	p. 215
Index	p. 239
About the Contributors	p. 257
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