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Publisher: McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2009, £46.95/$55.
ISBN: 978 0 7864 3948 5. Distributed in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa by Eurospan
One of three major scholarly books out this year to celebrate the centennial of The Wind in the Willows (the others being The Annotated "Wind in the Willows" ([1] Gauger, 2009) and The "Wind in the Willows": An Annotated Edition ([2] Lerer, 2009)), this striking book provides a wealth of information on the many illustrators, both well known and obscure, who have tackled the peculiar problems of illustrating Grahame's classic fantasy of the English countryside.
Illustrators are presented in chronological order by date of the edition they illustrated. Stills from some animated and stop-motion television and motion picture productions are included. Most entries provide information such as a brief biography of the artist, information on his or her training and experience, a short analysis of their technique and style, a list of their other works, whether they are still working as illustrators, and so on. All but three entries include a sample illustration from that artist's version of the tale. The most intriguing entries include extracts from interviews with the artists, describing their sense of connection to Grahame's book, the research they did, their working methods, how satisfied they were with their own work, and so on.
The closest thing to a competing recent and definitive bibliography of Wind in the Willows editions is at www.kennethgrahamesociety.net/, the website of the Kenneth Grahame Society, so one of the chief values of this...