The Wind in the Willows

First published in 1908, this novel follows four animals on an English river and in the Wild Wood. Mole leaves his hole, meets the water Rat, and learns boating and picnics; they visit Mr Toad of Toad Hall, whose mania for caravans and motor-cars lands him in court and prison. Badger, a grave figure of the wood, joins the others as stoats and weasels occupy the Hall. Interleaved chapters send Mole and Rat into the woods at night and onto a quieter encounter by the river. The book is a pastoral adventure of friendship, home, and Toad's comic rise and fall, not a natural-history treatise.

Bound in green artificial moiré silk with a circular design in gold by Lynch. Grey-green endleaves. Grey-green slipcase.