GRAHAM, Kenneth (Grahame Kenneth)

(1859-1932)
Born March 8, 1859 in Edinburgh. Mother died of scarlet fever in 1864, an alcoholic father left in 1867 to France, where twenty years later, died. Responsibility for the future of the boy assumed his uncle and aunt. Showed outstanding ability in St Edwards School in Oxford, Graham settled down a clerk in the Bank of England, and his request for continuing education at Oxford University were rejected. The following 30 years of his life were spent in London. Enrolling in the banking service in 1879, he was promoted to the post of Secretary, resigned in 1908. Beginning in 1880, wrote essays, some of them published in book entry Pagan (Pagan papers, 1893).
A truly Graham's literary career began with the fact that it opened the critic and poet William E. Henley (1849-1903) by typing the many works of the young author in the magazine 'National Observer'. Ibid in the journal 'Yellow Book' saw the light of stories about his childhood, of which formed the book The Golden Age (The Golden Age, 1895) and Days of Dreams (Dream Days, 1898).

Graham's masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows (Wind in the Willows, 1908), appeared initially in the form of letters to his son and stories at bedtime at his bedside. This classic work has been key to immortality Graham. Its significance goes far beyond the boundaries of entertaining stories about animals that live near the river. Here the writer has embodied his longing for the gardens of the Hesperides, where there are daruyuschie eternal youth golden apples, and expressed sadness about the values of patriarchal, pre-industrial England.

After the Wind in the Willows Grahame almost completely left the literature, only occasionally speaking with an essay, and went out to retire moved closer to the Thames. Graham died in Pangburne (Berkshire) 6 July 1932.