Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) spent his childhood in Cookham, England, along the River Thames and near Quarry Wood, the inspirational and idyllic setting for his most famous book, The Wind in the Willows, published in 1908. As a young man, he worked for the Bank of England while writing stories for periodicals that were eventually published under his own name in three collections: Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), and Dream Days (1898)—this latter volume containing the well-known story “The Reluctant Dragon.”
