The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. After the death of his mother and abandonment by his father, Grahame went to live with his grandmother in Berkshire, near the River Thames. He pursued his passion for writing while maintaining a career in banking. He enjoyed great success in both endeavors. The Wind in the Willows was originally written in parts and given in letter to his son.

Eric Kincaid HS RMS SLm became captivated by illustrations in books on his 8th birthday when he was given a book about Robin Hood, illustrated by H.M.Brock. ‘I can remember lying on my stomach on the living room floor, engrossed in the story, when I turned a page and saw Brock’s black and white illustration depicting the death of Robin. The emotion came through to me from the printed page. I was deeply moved and knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life’

Born in London in 1931, Eric studied illustration and design at Gravesend School of Art where Peter Blake was a contemporary and Quentin Crisp one of the life models. After two years national service and then working in advertising Eric became a comic strip artist where he drew the last Dan Dare story for the Eagle. In 1971 Eric was offered the chance to fulfil his real ambition to illustrate children’s books when the publishing company, Brimax Books asked him to illustrate a book of Nursery Rhymes. There followed a long and successful relationship with Brimax who commissioned over 100 books from Eric over the next 30 years. These included Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Oliver Twist, Alice in Wonderland, Aesop’s Fables and anthologies of poetry and nursery rhymes. Eric went on regular book signing tours of America and Canada and regularly attended the Frankfurt Book Fair. His titles have appeared in 14 languages and world-wide sales exceed 9 million copies.

Eric settled in Dorset in 1990 and took up miniature painting, at the encouragement of his friend Peter Hayton, in 2012. Since then Eric has gone on to become well known in the miniature painting circles with his beautiful paintings of well known children’s story characters and fantasy paintings of fairytale characters, fairies and dragons. He passed away in 2023.