INSPIRED BY THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

Sequels

William Horwood, whose popular Duncton novels also feature moles as main characters, wrote four successful sequels to The Wind in the Willows : The Willows in Winter (1993), Toad Triumphant (1995), The Willows and Beyond (1996), and The Willows at Christmas (1999). Horwood ably captures the rhythm, style, and spirit of the original story, taking Grahame’s beloved characters on new rounds of comical misadventures. Horwood’s first sequel, The Willows in Winter, maintains Grahame’s emphasis on adventure and loyalty. Toad has settled calmly on the river after the mishaps of The Wind in the Willows, but his reformation lasts only until he discovers the joy of flying airplanes. Toad’s dangerous new obsession coincides with the disappearance of Mole, who vanishes while searching for friends lost in a blizzard.

Toad Triumphant features the first female animal character in the adventures of Mole, Toad, Rat, and Badger—a French sculptress whom Toad falls in love with. While the irascible hero ponders the advantages of matrimony, Mole and Rat stretch the boundaries of their provincial lives by rowing far upstream in search of “the mystery we have called Beyond.” In The Willows and Beyond, modern society encroaches upon the inhabitants of the Wild Wood. When upstream residents pollute the waters and housing developers target the river bank, the heroes relocate to Toad’s property in Lathbury Forest, a bittersweet ending that underscores the dubious benefits of human progress.

Horwood’s final sequel takes place in the span of time between The Wind and the Willows and The Willows in Winter. The Willows at Christmas has Toad disconsolate as he awaits the arrival of Mrs. Ffleshe, the annual houseguest who protects him from his own excesses and at the same time utterly ruins the holiday season. Mole’s attempt to aid Toad goes predictably awry, landing the former in jail and setting the stage for a thrilling escape. All of the Horwood sequels feature delightful cross-hatch illustrations by Patrick Benson, appropriately adding to the magic of Horwood’s text.

In Wild Wood (1981), Jan Needle takes a less benign view of Grahame’s seemingly innocent story. In a Marxist twist, Needle retells The Wind in the Willows from the point of view of the working-class weasels, stoats, and ferrets that populate the river community. The proletariat heroes of Wild Wood take over Toad’s manse and rename it Brotherhood Hall, an event that transcends the simple politics of The Wind in the Willows and demonstrates that there are two sides to every tale.

Theater and Film

The Wind in the Willows was dramatized in 1929 by A. A. Milne, author of the animal classic Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). Milne’s play formed the basis for the first film adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, the black-and-white television movie Toad of Toad Hall (1946).

There have been many other cinematic adaptations of The Wind in the Willows, most of them animated and many made for television; animated made-for-TV versions appeared in 1984, 1987, and 1995. Fans particularly appreciated a 1983 animation directed by Mark Hall and Chris Taylor, one of two adaptations to appear that year. The Disney animated film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) is a two-part featurette depicting the separate stories of Ichabod Crane, the schoolmaster from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the characters from The Wind in the Willows. The thirty-minute segment about Toad and his pals captures the humor and frenetic energy of the novel; many consider this warm-hearted and thoughtful short one of Disney’s finest achievements.

Terry Jones, best known for his work in the wacky Monty Python comedy troupe, directed the only live-action film based on The Wind in the Willows. Small, surreal details give this light, classically British adaptation—released in the United States in 1996 as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride—much of its charm. In one segment a crew team of rabbits rows down the stream; in another a tweed-clad Toad chomps down on a fly. Director Jones, covered in green makeup, stars as Toad; Steve Coogan is Mole, and Nicol Williamson is Badger. Two of Jones’s Monty Python mates round out the cast: Eric Idle as Rat and John Cleese as Toad’s lawyer; veteran actor Stephen Fry plays the judge.

Animals in Literature

The tradition of using animals to dramatize truths about humanity dates back at least to the sixth century B.C. with the fables of Aesop. In the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, the rise of industrialization and the rapid growth of modern cities seemed to create an appetite for stories about animals and an older way of life grounded in a natural world unspoiled by man.

History’s best-selling children’s book, Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1900), preceded The Wind in the Willows by several years. It tells story of Mrs. Rabbit and her four bunny children, one of whom is the impish Peter. When he sneaks into a forbidden garden, Peter faces not only the wrath of his mother and the scorn of his siblings, but the threat of being made into rabbit pie by the angry Mr. McGregor.

The hero of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903) is an animal without human qualities. Buck is a dog reared on an estate in California. Kidnapped and sold to Alaskan gold-hunters, Buck must learn the way of his wolf-ancestors in order to survive the bitter conditions of his harsh new environment. A companion piece, London’s White Fang (1906), tells the story of a half-wolf, half-dog nearly destroyed by human cruelty.

The occasional barge-woman notwithstanding, Grahame’s novel excludes human characters. In contrast, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books (1894, 1895) and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1914), while romanticizing animals and nature, primarily focus on orphaned humans who become exemplary figures after they are adopted by animals. The two Jungle Books, set in India, center on Mowgli, raised by wolves after his family is killed by the tiger Shere Khan. Tarzan of the Apes describes the African adventures of an orphaned British nobleman who is raised by the gentle ape Kala and becomes king of the jungle. Tarzan of the Apes was immensely popular, and Burroughs wrote more than twenty sequels. Unlike Grahame’s and Potter’s stories, the novels by London, Kipling, and Burroughs are not written for children.

Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), by A. A. Milne, one of Grahame’s biggest supporters, has become a children’s classic. Inspired by the imaginary conversations of the toys of Milne’s young son, Christopher Robin, the story follows the adventures of the lovable bear Pooh, who can’t get enough honey, his bouncy friend Tigger, the anti-social donkey Eeyore, and shy little Piglet. Like The Wind in the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh has inspired many successful animated adaptations.

Notable animal stories for children published later in the twentieth century include Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), all by E. B. White; Where the Wild Things Are (1963), by Maurice Sendak; the stories of Arnold Lobel, including Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970) and Fables (1980); and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971), by Robert C. O’Brien, and Racso and the Rats of NIMH (1986), by his daughter Jane Leslie Conly.