En men en padda

En av litteraturens charmigaste groddjur är nog Mr. Toad, den sangviniske, intelligensbefriade men godhjärtade fartdåren, i Kenneth Grahames ”The Wind in the Willows”.
Boken publicerades ursprungligen utan illustrationer 1908, men har följts av många illustrerade utgåvor. 
Kenneth Grahame godkände E. H. Shepards första skisser, men hann avlida innan han blev färdig med illustrationerna till boken som kom ut 1931.
Bilderna här är från 1913, en utgåva illustrerad av Paul Bransom (1885–1979).  Boken har lockat många kända illustratörer, Arthur Rackham (1940), Tasha Tudor (1966) för att bara nämna ett par av dem.

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over, and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, sipped his tea and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely about himself, and the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how important he was, and what a lot his friends thought of him.