Eternal Boy
MATTHEW DENNISON
(HEAD OF ZEUS, 272 PP, £18.99)
Tablet Bookshop price £17.09 • tel 020 7799 4064

I doubt if many of today’s children are addicted to The Wind in the Willows, or read it at all. For my generation it was mandatory; my own 1929 edition has been read to bits, almost literally, the spine missing, pages loose. Grahame died in 1932, so although this, his last book, was published back in 1908, it had pretty well acquired classic status by the Twenties and Thirties, though it had not been acclaimed initially – many reviews were negative. The po-faced Times Literary Supplement reviewer found that “as a contribution to natural history the work is negligible”. Oh, for heaven’s sake!

But the book caught on, its sentiments much in accord with a particular mindset of the day, and it remains enshrined within the canon. I remember with relish Alan Bennett’s National Theatre production of 1990, with a deliciously camp Badger, whose interest in visiting young field mice seemed a touch dubious.