British author Kenneth Grahame, during his brief career, managed to create two of the world’s most beloved children’s stories: the classic tale ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and the novella ‘The Reluctant Dragon.’ Here is the first of these beautiful tales, ‘The Reluctant Dragon, ‘ wherein the main character – known only as ‘the Boy’ – discovers a friendly dragon living outside his small village. When the villagers learn of the dragon’s existence, they recruit St. George himself to slay the monster, prompting the Boy to intervene and try to save his friend. It is a sweet, uplifting fable of love and friendship for children of all ages and is presented here in its original and unabridged format.
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Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. After the untimely death of their mother when Grahame and his three siblings were very young, Grahame’s father – who had a drinking problem – gave his four children over to their grandmother to raise, where they lived in a huge, rundown house called ‘The Mount’ in Berkshire. The house was very near the Thames River and the children became acquainted with river life and boating through their uncle, David Ingles, the curate at Cookham Dean church. After the chimney collapsed at The Mount during Christmas of 1865, the family moved to Fern Hill Cottage in Cranbourne, Berkshire. Following a failed attempt to reunite the children with their father in 1866, the children returned to live with their grandmother again until they each entered school. Kenneth started at St Edward’s School, Oxford, in 1868. Thwarted from attending Oxford University due to the high cost, Grahame began work at the Bank of England and rose to become Secretary of the Bank until his retirement due to ill-health in 1908, the same year The Wind and the Willows was published. Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, when he was 40 years old. The following year, Elspeth gave birth to their only child, Alastair (nicknamed ‘Mouse’), we was born premature, blind in one eye and who suffered from severe health problems all his life. To comfort the often bedridden child, Grahame began making up bedtime stories, eventually spinning elaborate tales about the denizens of his countryside adventures, featuring the characters of Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad. Though he published two fairly successful books of short stories prior to 1908 – including The Reluctant Dragon in 1898 – it was not until the release of The Wind in the Willows that Grahame received international acclaim. Since then, the story has been adapted multiple times to the stage and screen and still enjoys a wide popularity as one of the finest children’s books ever written. Grahame died in 1932.
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