Customer Reviews

The Wind in the Willows: An Annotated Edition

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This edition, published by Harvard/Belknap, reproduces E.H. Shepard's wonderful line drawings and contains a color gallery of work by many of the best, most praised illustrators of The Wind in the Willows. It's a beautiful object you'll want to own and treasure. The notes by Seth Lerer -- who just won the NBCC award for his history of children's literature -- are superb, often rising to the level of short essays. Here is Lerer, for example, on "spring cleaning" and the novel's famous opening sentence: "The phrase emerged in the late Victorian period. Houses and apartments would have been turned out and cleaned at least once a year... It clearly marks a turn in the late-19th century domestic habits, one keyed to the gradual move away from the domestic space defined by objects and clutter to a space defined by cleanliness. The symbolic resonances, too, are obvious: spring is a time of renewal, of clearing out the past, and of refreshness. The OED offers this quotation form The Pall Mall Gazette of 1889: 'There are a few points of mutual sympathy between the poet and the spring cleaner.' Grahame begins the story, then, by clearing out the past and making a fresh start. But he also introduces one of the governing conceits of the story: that his main characters, even though they are animals, live in a comfortably familiar domestic world." A lovely edition.

There are two recent annotated versions of "The Wind in the Willows", and I have only read this one, so this review isn't meant to be a comparison. Indeed, I chose Mr. Lerer's version because of its higher customer rating on Amazon.com. However, now that I've completed it, I am left hoping the other author's version is better.

In short, these annotations just seem a bit perfunctory. Most of them are simple transcriptions from the OED, explaining the meaning and origin of obscure words. That, of course, is helpful, but lacks the imagination and ingenuity of, say, Martin Gardner's "The Annotated Alice", which really delves into the depth and meaning of Lewis Carroll's classic. At his worst, Lerer composes certain presumptions as facts, when they are occasionally rather poor guesses. In one section, he pronounces that Badger's house is an old church, whereas the prose leads most to believe Badger lives in a Roman ruin. All annotators make presumptions of course, but it is imperative to word them as such so readers aren't misled.

The book is not without its strengths. Lerer's introduction is insightful, and the book is beautifully printed, with buttery paper and nicely printed illustrations. On the whole, it's not a bad book, I just wish more time was spent honing and refining it, making sure it was worthy of Grahame's original.

It is safe to say that few would contest that The Wind in the Willows is one of the most beloved works of children's literature ever written. Children today love it, their parents loved it, their grandparents and even their great-great-grandparents loved it. The stories captured the hearts of young and old alike back in 1908, and over 100 years later the same still holds true. Turns of phrase and names of items that were commonplace at the turn of the 20th century are now charming and antiquated -- and very often confusing for the average modern day reader.

Seth Lerer steps in to educate and entertain in this delightful new edition of a timeless classic. In the generously spaced margins running along the outer side of each page Lerer provides the etymological origins of words, the references and influences that Grahame drew upon to create his stories, and a description of the flora and fauna of Great Britain. In Chapter 1, he goes into detail about the Victorian trend of picnicking; later in Chapter 7 he notes the influence that Romantic poets, Keats in particular, had on Grahame's choice of words. And in the middle of the book there's a 16 page spread of glossy, full color images of the covers and illustrations of past editions.

Whether readers are nostalgic for the stories of their childhood or looking to experience The Wind in the Willows in an entirely new fashion, this is a book that simply can't be passed up.

This was a beautiful edition of The Wind in the Willows. I throughly enjoyed it for many of its features. The seller delivered true to their word and in an expeditious fashion. Thank you.

This is a superb edition. All Wind in the Willows lovers should be grateful to Seth Lerer and Harvard University Press for such a wonderful edition. The collection of illustrations from several editions are worth the price of the book in themselves.