A sentimental British favorite, The Wind in
the Willows is a far more interesting book than its popular and often juvenile
audience might suggest. It became established as the evergreen children''s classic
it is known as today.
In 1908, Grahame retired from his position
as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved back to Cookham, Berkshire, where
he had been brought up and spent his time by the River Thames doing much as the
animal characters in his book do. He wrote down the bedtime stories he had been
telling his son Alistair.
In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt, then President
of the United States, wrote to Grahame to tell him that he had “read it and
reread it, and have come to accept the characters as old friends”. The novel
was in its thirty-first printing when playwright A. A. Milne adapted a part of it
for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall in 1929. In 2003, The Wind in the Willows
was listed at No. 16 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.
目錄:
CHAPTER 1 THE RIVER BANK 1
CHAPTER 2 THE OPEN ROAD 14
CHAPTER 3 THE WILD WOOD 28
CHAPTER 4 MR. BADGER 42
CHAPTER 5 DULCE DOMUM 58
CHAPTER 6 MR. TOAD 75
CHAPTER 7 THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN
90
CHAPTER 8 TOAD’S ADVENTURES 102
CHAPTER 9 WAYFARERS ALL 117
CHAPTER 10 THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD
135
CHAPTER 11 “LIKE SUMMER
TEMPEST CAME HIS TEARS” 153