Books to Read poster No 50

 Yay, finally and at last! - we're half way through. 

And no. 50, acquired as a free Audible classic has this picture on the poster 

and although, looking at that it could be Gilbert White's The Natural History of Selborne it is in fact A Wind in the Willows

And yes, I read it as a child, and I also took part in a school production of Toad of Toad Hall but neither of those things prepared me for what an odd book this is. 

It's disjointed. In fact there is such a lack of  narrative coherence that I had to check several times to ensure I wasn't listening to a (very badly) abridged edition.  It's very unclear who the projected audience is.; children wouldn't understand half the references or indeed be particularly exercised over several of Grahame's obsessions, but grown ups presumably wouldn't like the whimsy of talking animals and would find the many jolts and inconsistencies in the plot jarring.  It's part paean of praise for Edwardian clubland, part evocation of a lost pagan world or a vaguely described afterlife , and naturally enough given the time it was written  none of the major protagonists are female. 

I can't imagine how it came to be published, and a little bit of Googling tells me that it was in fact  rejected by numerous publishers before being brought out in 1908 by Methuen to negative reviews. Not just me then!