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(Description)

Author: Grahame, Kenneth. Paul Bransom, illustrator.
Title: The Wind in the Willows. Illustrated by Paul Bransom.
Publisher: London: Methuen & Co. LTD., 1913. First UK Edition illustrated by Paul Bransom.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 " X 6.5 ". 
Pages: 302 pages.
Binding: Attractive and Very good original full-cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Top edge gilt.
Content: Good to very good content (tight, some light foxing or staining - as shown, gift note of previous owners on the blank page at the back to the frontispiece page - as shown, crease to the last endpaper - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with the wonderful twelve full-page color illustrations by Paul Bransom.  

Estimate: (USD 300 - USD 450)

The book Rare First UK illustrated Bransom edition of The Wind in the Willows -- a children's book by Scottish novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternatingly slow-moving and fast-paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphized animals: Mole, Rat (a European water vole), Toad, and Badger. They live in a pastoral version of Edwardian England. In 1908, Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved back to Berkshire, where he had lived as a child, and spent his time by the River Thames, doing much as the animal characters in his book do – to quote, "simply messing about in boats" – and expanding the bedtime stories he had earlier told his son Alastair into a manuscript for the book.

The illustrator: Paul Bransom (July 1885 – July 19, 1979) was an American painter, cartoonist, and illustrator of animals. Born in Washington, D.C., as a child Bransom started sketching animals he saw in his backyard and at the National Zoo. He began his career as a technical draftsman for the U.S. Patent Office when he was 13 years old. In 1903 he moved to New York City, where he worked for the New York Evening Journal as a comic strip artist. He drew the comic strip The Latest News from Bugville (1903-1912). After moving to New York, his talent as a wildlife artist was recognized while creating studies of the animals at the Bronx Zoo. His earliest commissions were covers for the Saturday Evening Post and illustrations for editions of Kipling's Just So Stories and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

The author: Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a Scottish family. He is most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon. Both books were later adapted for stage and film, of which A. A. Milne's Toad of Toad Hall, based on part of The Wind in the Willows, was the first. Other adaptations include the Disney films The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and The Reluctant Dragon.