

SPECIAL EVENTS
In any given season we run a number of special events, usually at Moor Park Mansion, for example an Afternoon Lecture followed by Afternoon Tea, or a dinner followed by an Evening Lecture. We also hold a Reception for new members, traditionally in the spring. Details are published on this page as soon as available.
The Art of The Wind in the Willows
19 June 2025 at 13:30:00
Moor Park Mansion, Rickmansworth
Speaker:
John Ericson

The Wind in the Willows Original Front Cover Illustration 1908
Afternoon Lecture with optional Afternoon Tea
The beauty of Kenneth Grahame’s prose in The Wind in the Willows is widely acknowledged and the story is so full of wonderful imagery that it almost demands to be illustrated. But despite this - quite remarkably - when first published in 1908 the book was without pictures.
This afternoon we revisit the story of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger through the eyes of some of the more than ninety artists who have illustrated this much loved book since then, such as the great E H Shepard, Arthur Rackham and Val Biro, and explore how it came to be written.