A mole abandons his spring-cleaning, meets a water rat, and is drawn into a summer of boats, picnics and the disasters of a rich toad with a motor-car. Grahame invented these creatures in bedtime stories and letters to his son Alastair, and published the book in 1908, the year he left the Bank of England. Between the comedy sits a chapter about a piper on an island at dawn, which no child asks about twice and no adult forgets. Ninety-three riverbank and water scenes by painters including John Constable and Spencer Gore run through the book, matching its current of boats, locks and quiet banks.
