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Toad of Toad Hall
London: Methuen & Co., 1929. Item #06443
A. A. Milne’s “Toad of Toad Hall”—
A Play from Kenneth Grahame’s Book “The Wind in the Willows”
MILNE, A.A. Toad of Toad Hall. A Play from Kenneth Grahame’s Book ‘The Wind in the Willows’. London: Methuen & Co., [1929].
First trade edition. Octavo (7 3/8 x 4 3/4 inches; 187 x 122 mm.). xv, [1, blank], 166, [1], [1, printer’s imprint] pp. plus 8 pp. publisher’s catalogue.
Original blue cloth pictorially stamped in gilt on front cover and lettered in gilt on spine. Top edge gilt. A fine copy. In the original cream-colored dust jacket printed in dark green, inside edges neatly strengthened.
Toad of Toad Hall was “the first of several dramatisations of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. It was written by A.A. Milne, by extracting the adventures of Mr. Toad (which form only about half of the original book) because they lent themselves most easily to being staged. The play has four main characters: Rat, Badger, Mole, and Toad. Toad’s caravan and car adventures are included, as well as his imprisonment, escape, and fight with the weasels and stoats to regain his home with the help of his friends. Although not a musical, the play contains six songs. The music for the play was by Milne’s friend H. Fraser Simson. Milne omitted ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and ‘Wayfarers All’, and—more seriously—replaced Grahame’s lyricism with somewhat shallow sentimentality. But the play was a great success, and for many years was performed every Christmas in the West End, its first production being at the Lyric Theatre in London on December 17th, 1929” (Wikipedia.com).
Price: $500.00