The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - 1940

New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1940. First edition. Cloth. Fine. 11.5" by 8.5". Arthur Rackham. A limited first edition of Arthur Rackham's illustrated 'The Wind in the Willows', adorned with his beautiful colour plates of the anthropomorphised animals. The first edition of this work with Arthur Rackham's illustrations.A limited edition work, limited to two thousand and twenty copies, of which this is numbered nineteen seventeen.Signed by the printer, Brian Rogers, to the limitation page.'The Wind in the Willows' is a children's tale beloved by many. It is adventurous and mystical, with it's four main characters being animals; Mole, Rat, Mr Toad, and Mr Badger.Illustrated with a colour frontispiece, and fifteen colour plates.Collated, complete.Kenneth Grahame is most famous for this children's classic, which he wrote after retiring from his job at the Bank of England. Though working at the bank, he often published stories in various periodicals, with some of them being published in collections, such as 'The Golden Age', and 'Pagan Papers'.Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Rackham was a noted and well admired book illustrator who illustrated editions of 'The Ingoldsby Legends', 'Grimm's Fairy Tales', and 'Gulliver's Travels', as well as contributing frequently to periodicals. He is considered to be one of the leaders of the 'Golden Age' of book illustrations. In the original publisher's quarter cloth binding with marbled paper to the boards. Externally, fine. Spine is a touch discoloured, very light bumping to the extremities. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are bright and clean. Fine