Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. Methuen, London, 1908.

Price: US$12500.00 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: First Edition, First Printing SIGNED BY Kenneth Grahame on a laid in signature. A wonderful copy. The book is bound in the publisher's ORIGINAL blue cloth and is in great shape. The binding is tight with NO cocking or leaning with minor wear to the boards. The pages are clean with NO writing, marks or bookplates in the book. A superb copy SIGNED by the author. We buy Kenneth Grahame First Editions.

Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.

GRAHAME, Kenneth. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. Methuen, 1908.

Price: US$19626.68 + shipping

Description: Second edition, printed in the same month as the first edition and in identical format. 8vo. Original blue-green cloth with gilt illustration on the spine and upper cover. Top edge gilt. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title, "Austin M. Purves / with greeting, + all the good wishes of the season, from Kenneth Grahame, Christmas 1908" A beautiful, fine copy, bright and crisp and internally perfect. A superb copy. Striking black and white frontispiece by Graham Robertson. Austin Montgomery Purves was a Philadelphia based businessman, associated with the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company for more than thirty years. Purves had a keen interest in grand opera as well as art and literature and sought to move in artistic circles, counting Maxfield Parrish, Jessie Wilcox Smith and Arthur Quiller-Couch amongst his friends. They met the Grahames' at Fowey in 1907, "while the Grahame's were at Fowey in May and June 1907, they made the acquaintance of an American family also on holiday there - Mr and Mrs Austin Purves of Philadelphia, and their five sons. Kenneth actually stood godfather to Pierre, the youngest, at his Fowey christening. Grahame and Austin Purves continued to correspond regularly until the latter's death in 1915." - Peter Green (Kenneth Grahame A Study of His Life, Work and Times) Purves sought to help Grahame by writing a favourable review of the American edition Wind in the Willows for an American magazine. In a letter to Purves of November 1908, Grahame wrote, "I'm most awfully obliged to you for the solid work you are putting in on behalf of 'the W. in the W.' Your review was perfectly charming, & is bound to be most helpful. That the book has given you all personal pleasure is of course very good for me to think of." Presentation copies of The Wind in the Willows are decidedly rare.

Seller: Jonkers Rare Books, Henley on Thames, OXON, United Kingdom

GRAHAME, Kenneth. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. Methuen, 1908.

Price: US$98133.39 + shipping

Description: First edition. 8vo. Original blue-green cloth with gilt vignettes and titles to the spine and upper cover. Top edge gilt. Author's presentation copy, inscribed by Grahame on the half title, "To Ruth Ward, from her friend Kenneth Grahame / Oct. 1908" A little wear to the spine ends and corners, but generally bright and clean and notably fresh internally. Woodcut frontispiece by Graham Robertson. A rare presentation copy of one of the classics of children's literature. Ruth Ward was the daughter of family friends of the Grahames, Sidney and Katherine Ward. Sidney Ward was a colleague of Grahame's at the Bank of England who became a close friend and "companions for hearty country weekends". (ODNB) Ruth was the same age as Grahame's son, Alastair, (known to his parents as Mouse) and became a close childhood friend. Wind in the Willows had its genesis in a series of impromptu bedtime stories which Grahame told Alastair. Katherine Ward was one of the first to hear about these stories, as Grahame refers to them in a letter to her of May 1904, "[Mouse] had a bad crying fit on the night of his birthday, and I had to tell him stories about moles, giraffes & water-rats (he selected these subjects) till after 12." This copy was sent by Grahame to Ward as a birthday present. In a letter to her, Grahame's wife Elspeth writes, "I thought you might like perhaps better than anything else a new book that Mouse's Daddy has just written, so I asked him for one for your birthday present. I want to know how you like it." The two families remained in contact throughout Grahame's life, Elspeth writing to Ruth Ward on Grahame's death in 1932 to tell him that he had been buried next to Mouse (who had committed suicide in 1920), "Kenneth so loved the Boy & so loved Oxford itself that we are glad to think he rests there. I felt you knew Mouse so well & Kenneth also that I would like you to know they were together." Presentation copies of the first edition of Wind in the Willows are of the utmost rarity in commerce. We know of but six copies, 1. Inscribed to Helen Grahame (Oct. 1908). Private American Collection. 2. Inscribed to Ruth Ward (Oct. 1908). Present copy. 3. Inscribed to Foy Quiller-Couch (Oct. 1908). Private American Collection. 4. Inscribed to Thomas Anstey Guthrie ("F. Anstey") (Oct. 1908). Private British collection. 5. Inscribed to Constance Smedley (Oct. 1908). Sold Sotheby Oct. 1981. 6. Inscribed to Mary E. Richardson. Sold Sotheby July 1965. Osborne p. 349

Seller: Jonkers Rare Books, Henley on Thames, OXON, United Kingdom