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Children's Favorites - Volume II - The Wind in the Willows - The Velveteen Rabbit - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland AND Through the Lookingglass

By Kenneth Grahame & Margery Williams &
Children's Favorites - Volume II - The Wind in the Willows - The Velveteen Rabbit - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland AND Through the Lookingglass by Kenneth Grahame & Margery Williams &  digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

Presented here are four of the most popular children's books of all time: Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows," Margery Williams' "The Velveteen Rabbit" and Lewis Carroll's "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Lookingglass."  


First, Kenneth Grahame's classic "The Wind in the Willows," one of the most beloved and admired novels of children's literature. The story follows the adventures of the mild-mannered Mole and his friend Rat, who emerge from their winter's slumber to explore the Springtime world, encountering the sedate and businesslike Badger as well as the wild and impulsive Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, who cannot seem to avoid mishaps and run-ins with the police.  


Next, Margery Williams Bianco's revered children's story of a stuffed rabbit who longs to be real, "The Velveteen Rabbit" has been one of the world's most beloved children's books for the past 100 years. Chosen as one of the "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children," this volume features illustrations by the original artist for the book, William Nicholson. Adapted over the years many times for stage, screen and television, The Velveteen Rabbit is a timeless tale of love, loss, friendship and what it means to triumph over adversity.  


And finally, Lewis Carroll's classic duo of nonsense and imagination, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Lookingglass," books that were immediate sensations upon publication. Both books relate the story of Alice, a young girl who tumbles down a rabbit hole into a world filled with talking rabbits, grinning cats, mad hatters and vengeful queens and, in Book Two, her trip through a mirror into another, magical world. Long hailed as one of the greatest children's book series ever created, "Alice" has permeated the culture. The subject of dozens of adaptations, re-tellings, films and stage productions, here are two of the most treasured works of fiction in the English language. 


Enjoy ALL FOUR of these classic children's novels in ONE VOLUME! This is the second of a limited series.

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About Kenneth Grahame

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.

Margery Williams

Margery Williams Bianco (1881-1942) was born in London to Robert and Florence Williams, who she later described as loving and nurturing parents, both of whom encouraged their children to become readers and lovers of literature. When Robert Williams died, Margery (then seven) and her remaining family moved to America, settling in a farming community in rural Pennsylvania. Roger's death has often been cited as one of the reasons why Margery's books take on such dark themes of sadness and death, but Margery herself maintained that children learned to become more compassionate and achieved a greater humanity after facing adversity. Margery's love of reading naturally led to a desire to create her own stories and she began publishing books at the age of nineteen, beginning with The Late Returning (1902) and The Thing in the Woods, a horror novel, in 1914. Married to Francesco Bianco in 1904, the couple had two children, Cecco and Pamela, and after briefly living in Paris, moved to Turin, Italy, where they would spend the entirety of the First World War with Francesco joining the Italian Army. After the war, with Europe in disarray, they returned to America and moved to Greenwich Village, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Margery continued to write and, in 1922, finally gained worldwide notoriety when she published The Velveteen Rabbit which became an instant classic. The Biancos' daughter Pamela was a famous child artist and later illustrated some of her mother's books, including The Little Wooden Doll (1925) and The Skin Horse (1927). Though Margery continued to write - penning over 20 children's books and novels in her career - The Velveteen Rabbit continues to be her best-known work. Margery Williams Bianco died after a brief illness in 1944 at the age of 63.

Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on January 27, 1832, the third child of Charles and Frances Jane Dodgson. An early lover of literature, Dodgson suffered from a stammer that greatly inhibited his social activities throughout his life.Despite his status as an outcast at school, Charles excelled scholastically, particularly in math. He attended Oxford where he received first-class honors in Mathematics and won the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship upon graduation in 1855, which he held for 26 years.But Dodgson was also a poet and writer, contributing often to the family magazine Mischmasch, among others. He wrote mostly short, humorous pieces and satire, but with a romantic poem, "Solitude," written under his pen name "Lewis Carroll," he finally received real recognition.Befriending the new Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, Dodgson grew to know the Liddell children, including the youngest, Alice. For her, he created the fantastical tale of Alice and her adventures "under ground," which was later refined and published as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."After the overwhelming success of the first Alice book, Dodgson published his sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There," which proved to be just as popular. Of his other literary works, his most beloved is the nonsense poem "The Hunting of the Snark."An inventor, amateur photographer and prolific correspondent, Dodgson died of pneumonia after a bout of influenza on January 14, 1989 and is buried at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford.

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