I near gave up hope. I considered shooting myself in the face with the small pistol I carry on journeys like this one. I should have, but my fear that those which I can not understand would capture my fleeing soul, and make for a fate worse than death caused me to carry on. a) The atmosphere. Hands down the best part of the entire book. A gloomy, ominous, and vivid atmosphere is everything you need when it comes to horror novels, and this is definitely one of the best books where the characters seem to get overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the place where they happen to be that I have read so far, and also where the atmosphere is so well depicted that even you, as a reader, feel as if you were 'trapped' inside this world along with the characters. The plot of Caitlin R. Kiernan's novel Threshold (2001) drew upon "The Willows," which was quoted several times in the book. [6] It didn't help my composure one bit when my faithful traveling companion Mooncheese got bored with my long walk of four feet and went to slumber with the devious dreams that only nature can provide and that man can only stare wide-eyed in horror at even a thought about what they might contain. I rested on my arduous journey and found myself urinating in my pants, something we can not call fear, for all men would urinate themselves, and some even do worse if they heard the rumbling noise of the passing 7 train outside their window. I am no believer in ghosts, but how else can I explain the train's sudden arrival at this moment when all sort of unspeakable horrors were conspiring to drive me mad?

The animals of Wind in the Willows". Inside Out. BBC. 10 January 2005 . Retrieved 26 February 2013. Michel Plessix created a Wind in the Willows comic book series, which helped to introduce the stories to France. They have been translated into English by Cinebook Ltd.The exploits and escapades of Mr. Toad were such an appealing part of the book, that 2 decades later, when it was in its 31st printing, the author A.A. Milne adapted those chapters for the stage. The result was A.A. Milne’s 1929 play, “Toad of Toad Hall”. Almost a century later, it was yet again adapted for the stage, this time as a musical, by Julian Fellowes. This is a book which has never been out of print, has many adaptations, and never lost its appeal. The Willows" was the personal favorite story of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote in his 1927 treatise " Supernatural Horror in Literature", "Here art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a single strained passage or a single false note". [4]

Well, no. It wasn’t. To begin with, neither the author nor the publisher thought it was a children’s book. Grahame was famous for books about childhood, The Golden Age and Dream Days: the publisher’s announcement described it as ‘a whimsical satire upon life’, reviewers described it as ‘an urbane exercise in irony at the expense of English character and mankind’ and Grahame himself called it ‘a book of Youth – and so perhaps chiefly for Youth,’ by which he meant those who liked an idyllic life, ‘free of problems, clean of the clash of sex…’ Which we might think, is an interesting way of putting it. Grahame, Kenneth (2009), Gauger, Annie; Jacques, Brian (eds.), The Annotated Wind in the Willows, Norton Annotated Series, Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-05774-4 The Wind in the Willows, a 1969 TV series adaptation of the story produced by Anglia Television, told by still illustrations by artist John Worsley. The story was adapted, produced, and narrated by Paul Honeyman and directed by John Salway.Sadly, the ending wasn't completely for me, and please don't get me wrong, I liked it, but when I think of the whole story the only part I can't remember very well—I'm typing my review eight days after reading the book and I barely took notes at the time—is the ending. It's kind of funny though, because I do remember what I felt when finishing up the story, the feeling that you have just read a masterpiece of the genre.