Kenneth Grahame Biography

Scottish Children's Writer Famous for The Wind in the Willows

Mar 1, 2009
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Kenneth Grahame, British Children's Writer - Wikimedia Commons

Brief biography of British writer Kenneth Grahame, author of classic children's books.

Kenneth Grahame is the author of The Wind in the Willows, a great classic of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon, which was much later adapted into a Disney film.

Childhood of Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh on March 8, 1859. When he was five years old, his mother died of scarlet fever. Deeply upset by her death, his father felt unable to cope with bringing up their children. Grahame and his brothers and sisters were sent to live in England with their grandmother.

Grahame had a happy childhood in the lovely English countryside. The children were given freedom to do more or less what they wanted. They were able to explore, had adventures, and through their own experiences, they learned about the world.

His childhood life had an immense influence on him. In later years when Grahame began writing, his characters shared the same carefree, adventurous spirit that he had enjoyed as a child.

Kenneth Grahame's Youthful Years

After leaving school, Grahame began working for the Bank of England in London. This did not keep him away from writing. In his spare time he wrote articles for magazines and began a series of stories about a group of orphaned children. The stories were later published in his first book, Pagan Papers.

Pagan papers and the next two that followed, The Golden Age and Dream Days, continued to be about children although they were written for adults. Grahame was highly praised for his brilliance at recreating the thoughts and feelings of childhood.

Family Life for Children's Writer Kenneth Grahame

At 40, Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, but the marriage was not a happy one. They had one child, Alastair, who was born blind in one eye and plagued by health problems throughout his short life. Alastair eventually committed suicide on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, two days before his 20th birthday.

Grahame's The Wind in the Willows

Grahame began writing the stories that eventually became his best book, The Wind in the Willows, for his young son, Alastair.

The adventures of the lovable woodland animals, namely, shy little Mole, clever Ratty, and crazy Toad, were published when Grahame was nearly 50.

The Wind in the Willows was not liked by critics but the children loved it and it became a classic within a few years of Grahame's death. He did not produce any substantive book like The Wind in the Willows after the suicide of his son, Alastair. Kenneth Grahame died at the age of 73, July 6, 1932.