The Wind in the Willows: An Annotated Edition (Hardcover)

~ Kenneth Grahame (Author), Seth Lerer (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Lerer's annotated edition of The Wind in the Willows not only seeks to respond to every possible question a contemporary reader (of any age) might pose, but it goes beyond that aim to make the most penetrating and astute interpretive asides, and it does so economically, judiciously, and--what is most delightful--in a graceful prose of its own that matches the gleaming poetic style of Kenneth Grahame himself and thus honors him both in form and content.
--Ellen Handler Spitz, author of The Brightening Glance: Imagination and Childhood (20090507)

The Wind in the Willows is one of the few books that inspires unconditional reverence, and it has long deserved a guide as sensitive, deft, insightful, and generous as Seth Lerer. Here, Toad, Rat, Mole, and other characters come alive for both adult and inner child. A splendid achievement.
--Maria Tatar, Harvard University (20090614)

You might think it a bit extreme to painstakingly annotate a children's book, but, oh, what a children's book. And oh, what an annotation...[This] is an exquisite examination of the nuances, allusions, Britishisms and context of Kenneth Grahame's wonderful 1908 novel...This big, lovely book is illustrated by some of the most famous Grahame illustrators--Nancy Barnhart, Arthur Rackham, Wyndham Payne and, of course, Ernest H. Shepherd, who brought to life the brash, cigar-smoking, swaggering Mr. Toad. This book is a labor of great scholarship, but it is also, clearly, a labor of love.
--Laurie Hertzel (Minneapolis Star-Tribune 20090626)

A handsome edition of Grahame's great classic...One of the delights of this edition is the collection of beautiful illustrations from each edition, from Nancy Barnhart's wonderful 1922 version to Arthur Rackham's in 1940, as well as Paul Bransom's deliciously weird 1913 images for Scribner's.
--Lawrence Osborne (Forbes 20090710)

Lerer's book perform[s] magic. [It] demonstrates how much of a writer's life can wind up distilled in a stack of paper--in this case, how Kenneth Grahame's daydreams, fears, heartbreak, upbringing, era and locale all sneaked into a fanciful children's book about talking animals. In what other book can you find slapstick auto theft, a dirge for lost arcadia and a numinous encounter with that pagan refugee and mascot of the Edwardian neo-romantics, the great god Pan?...Lerer's preface is a thoughtful and elegant survey of the biographical and literary context for this beloved book.
--Michael Sims (Washington Post Book World 20090726)

[An] exquisite new annotated edition of Kenneth Grahame's masterpiece...It takes us into a pre-modern world of lyrical beauty, with animals that behave like humans, landscapes that are painted for us rather than described, and language more literary than spoken...Rereading this volume, which Harvard University Press has given all the high production values it deserves, led me to understand more fully the soporific effects of The Wind in the Willows on children. Under the spell of an artist who animates his fictional world with something akin to solar energy ("Suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and colour was born and sprang out of the earth once more"), readers enter dreaded conflict zones but always return to that consummate comfort zone known as Home...By turns ecstatic and elegiac, and always without pathos, sentiment or pyrotechnics, The Wind in the Willows is also always there, ready to provide us, when we feel lost, with all the comforts of Home.
--Maria Tatar (Globe and Mail 20090528)

[A] handsome edition...[Lerer] provides a wealth of information that will be welcomed by anyone who wants return to the riverbank and discover just how enduring and endearing Grahame's masterpiece remains a century after it was published.
--Peter Parker (Times Literary Supplement )

For all its apparent celebration of neatness and domestic orderliness The Wind in the Willows is really a book about letting go. It begins with Mole, tired of spring cleaning, putting aside his whitewash brush and taking to the road, and its true hero is Toad, who is anarchy incarnate.
--Charles McGrath (New York Times Book Review )

An enduring masterpiece of children's literature.
--Bill Ruehlmann (Virginian-Pilot )

Full of luminous little notes on the story.
--Robert Pincus (Sign On San Diego )

Product Description

Begun as a series of stories told by Kenneth Grahame to his six-year-old son, The Wind in the Willows has become one of the most beloved works of children’s literature ever written. It has been illustrated, famously, by E.H. Shepard and Arthur Rackham, and parts of it were dramatized by A.A. Milne as Toad of Toad Hall. A century after its initial publication it still enchants. Much in Grahame’s novel—the sensitivity of Mole, the mania of Toad, the domesticity of Rat—permeates our imaginative lives (as children and adults). And Grahame’s burnished prose still dazzles. Now comes an annotated edition of The Wind in the Willows by a leading literary scholar that instructs the reader in a larger appreciation of the novel’s charms and serene narrative magic.

In an introduction aimed at a general audience, Seth Lerer tells us everything that we, as adults, need to know about the author and his work. He vividly captures Grahame’s world and the circumstances under which The Wind in the Willows came into being. In his running commentary on the novel, Lerer offers complete annotations to the language, contexts, allusions, and larger texture of Grahame’s prose. Anyone who has read and loved The Wind in the Willows will want to own and cherish this beautiful gift edition. Those coming to the novel for the first time, or returning to it with their own children, will not find a better, more sensitive guide than Seth Lerer.

(20090515)

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674034473
• ISBN-13: 978-0674034471
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #30,255 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Edition of One of the Great Works of Children's Literature, May 1, 2009

By	John Klima (New York) - See all my reviews

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.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hurray!, May 1, 2009

By	G. Ross (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We owe Harvard University Press a big "thank you" for bringing out this edition. Norton's annotated edition (The Annotated Wind in the Willows), published earlier this year, was a huge disappointment. The Seth Lerer version isn't, perhaps, designed as well (though I think the now-standard Norton-ginger-breading was misapplied here); the all-important annotations, however, are vastly superior in this edition.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice, but Lacking..., September 16, 2009

By	W. J. Hunter (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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.