There is a reference in Pilgrim's Inn to Wind in the Willows and -
apparently to WIW - a reference to the Perfect-Eaved House in the same
book. A friend and I have looked many times in WIW trying to find the
remark. It sounds like it would be Toad Hall but we have never found
it. Is it in an English edition and not in American editions - or what?

A curious reader - Louise - in mid-Missouri

Hi Louise,

The swallows in the Chapter Wayfarers All page 161 ,say to Rat " The call of lush meadow-grass, wet orchards, warm insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of hay making, and all the farm buildings clustering round the House of the perfect Eaves?" My copy of WIW is a 1961 re-print. I don’t think the American copy is different.

If you mean Sally mentioning it in Pilgrims Inn, she says it the first time she met Lucilla at Damerosehay. p160

Deborah

I am now wondering the original source of the phrase: House of the Perfect-Eaves. Guess I will have to do some online searching. Wonder if there is an Annotated Wind in the Willows.

I don't think I had paid much attention to that chapter in recent years. The central chapter in the book when they find the little otter is quietly wonderful one - and know I have read some studies on it. I have a vested interest in children's literature since I was a librarian before retirement. I never read WIW until my mid-30s and could not get my children interested in it.

Louise

I found at copy at www.abebooks.com, and it isn’t the only edition, there is at least one other. Happy Hunting

Deborah

KENNETH GRAHAME. My Dearest Mouse: The 'wind in the Willows' Letters.
Pavilion Books/Michael Joseph, London, 1988 FIRST EDITION. 1-85415-154-4, ISBN: 1-85415-154-4. VG/G, cream pictorial dj with brown/black titles on spine, price-clipped, front end page neatly cut off, contents are clean and unmarked, large octavo 190pp. Illustrated in colour & b/w. This classic book originated as a series of letters written by Grahame to his only child, 7 year old Alistair (who was known as 'Mouse'), in 1907. Fully annotated letters & with magnificent pictures by notable illustrators. Portrait picture of Alistair on dj back cover.