Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) was a Scottish-born writer who spent his working life at the Bank of England and rose to be its Secretary. The Wind in the Willows grew out of bedtime stories and then letters written to his son Alastair, and when he finally published it in 1908 the reviewers, who wanted another book of essays, did not know what to make of it. He had taken early retirement two years before, after a stranger walked into the Bank and fired three shots at him. A. A. Milne's stage version, Toad of Toad Hall, made the book a fixture.