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Welcome to the Kenneth Grahame Society


  News

Society AGM Weekend in Cookham on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd September 2011

The Kenneth Grahame Society is holding its AGM weekend in Cookham, Berkshire on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd September. The events in the programme are all free of charge, and everyone, including non-members, is welcome to attend. Please email us (admin@kennethgrahamesociety.net) if you plan to attend, as capacity is limited for some of the events.

Friday September 2nd
1030-1200 – Coffee morning discussion of Nicholas Tucker’s The Children’s Falstaff* (ie. Toad) in the King’s Arms, Cookham.
1430-1630 – Walk/drive around places related to Kenneth Grahame in and around Cookham, starting at King’s Arms, Cookham.
1930-2100 – Kenneth Grahame Society AGM in Herries Preparatory School , Cookham Dean.

Saturday September 3rd
1030-1230 – Lectures related to Kenneth Grahame in the Holy Trinity Parish Centre, Cookham.
1400-1700 – Kenneth Grahame Society stand at Cookham Regatta.
1800 – Informal meal (TBC.)
* Copies of this paper can be forwarded, on request, to anyone who plans to attend the coffee morning discussion.

 

Theatre: The Wind in the Willows (Running December 2010)

The award-winning National Student Drama Festival Ensemble and Theatre503, Battersea are staging a new play version of The Wind in the Willows story, adapted by James Phillips. It opens on December 1st and runs to December 18th. Fuller details are in the press release.

 

Film: The Wind in the Willows (Target release date 2012)

The highly respected Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, who previously worked on movies such as The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord Of The Rings and, most recently, James Cameron’s Avatar, will shortly be working with UK director Ray Griggs on an adaptation of The Wind In The Willows. For Willows enthusiasts, especially those who have seen the fantastic sets, costume, special effects, etc, that Weta Workshop produced for The Lord of the Rings, this is wonderful news. Fuller details about the film can be found on their website. [External link]

 

To raise awareness of the film and, in respect of the literary characters from Kenneth Grahame’s work, Weta Workshop have released a set of bookends depicting some of the characters from the book. These were sculpted at Weta Workshop by some of their very talented sculptors. The bookends can be ordered from their online shop. [External link]

 

Film: Banking on Mr Toad (Target release date 2010?)

A biopic of Kenneth Grahame, with the title "Banking on Mr Toad", is currently being produced and should be released later this year or in 2011. A well-researched biopic of Kenneth Grahame would be well worth seeing, as the subject has only been addressed once to date, in the form of a low-budget, voice-over documentary. Little further information is known at this time beyond what is found on the  IMDB webpage. [External link]

 

Kenneth Grahame Society Publications Now Available At Lower Shipping Rates

On initial publication of Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame and The Wind in the Willows Short Stories, the Kenneth Grahame Society decided to publish these books as hardcover editions with dustjackets. Unfortunately, although the publisher prints in both US and UK, that format was only printed in US, and the shipping costs from the US to the UK and Europe for these original editions were prohibitively high. Now a variety of editions are available, most of them being printed in both the US and the UK. Shipping costs are now much more acceptable for all regions. Please see the "Publications" page for fuller details.

 

2010 Kenneth Grahame Society AGM Weekend in London

The dates and venue for the Kenneth Grahame Society's 2010 Annual General Meeting and weekend of literary talks and events related to Kenneth Grahame  Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th September in London. Traditionally, the AGM is on the Saturday morning, followed by two talks in the afternoon. Fuller details can be found on the "Events" page.

 

Kenneth Grahame Society Flyer

A tri-fold flyer has been produced to create awareness of Kenneth Grahame, the Society, its activities and its publications. It can be downloaded here: "Flyer". We would be delighted if members and enthusiasts would download it, print a few double-sided, colour copies, fold them and distribute them to libraries, bookshops and friends. It requires a little effort, but we would greatly appreciate your support in this. Thank you. 

 

Donations

A new webpage, to enable some members and enthusiasts to make donations to the funding of the Kenneth Grahame Society, using the PayPal donations system, has been created and added to the website. It can be found here: "Donations" All donations are entirely voluntary and membership is still free.

 

Forum

The Kenneth Grahame Society Forum finally closed. It existed for about two years, and it had some interesting discussions and information. However, it was only used by a very small minority of the membership, and it often remained dormant for months at a time. At the 2009 AGM in Oxford it was agreed that the Forum, in such a dormant state, was no great credit to the name of Kenneth Grahame, and the decision to close it was approved. We would like to thank everyone who contributed postings to it over the years. All the information on it has been saved, and some of that will be repackaged and placed on the main website during forthcoming updates to the website.

 

If anyone has any relevant news, details of events, publications, and so forth, please email it to us at admin@kennethgrahamesociety.net.

 

The Kenneth Grahame Society is a member of the Alliance of Literary Societies (ALS) and the Children's Literature Association (ChLA).


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