Innocent in the Wild Wood Book

'The Wind in the Willows' needs no introduction, children have enjoyed the exploits of its characters for generations. Few would guess that its author, Kenneth Grahame, was a tortured soul. Marriage to the predatory Elspeth Thomson, when both seemed destined for the single life, was a shared fantasy of invented truth. Out of that union came a catastrophically spoiled son, 'Mouse', for whom that greatest of children's stories was written. It was the child's tragedy that he was sucked into the unreality of his parent's lives and did not survive it, ending his life in suicide.

Alison Prince brings her own highly acclaimed expertise as a children's writer to this remarkably perceptive biography of Kenneth Grahame, this first in over thirty-five years. Drawing on hitherto unpublished material she uncovers layer upon layer of Grahame's personality to reveal the truth behind the myth of this intriguing man, in short 'the tortured soul of Mr. Toad'.