Dream Days

Front Cover
IndyPublish.com, 2007 - Fiction - 116 pages

Dream Days (1898) is a collection of children's stories by Kenneth Grahame. It was published as a sequel to The Golden Age (1895), a collection of semi-autobiographical stories reflecting on the nature of childhood and the strange, distant lives of adults. Although less popular than The Wind in the Willows (1908), which would go on to become not only a defining work of Edwardian English literature, but one of the most popular works of children's fiction in the world, Dream Days features "The Reluctant Dragon," one of Grahame's most enduring short works of fiction.

Carrying on the themes and concerns of The Golden Age, the author reflects on his youth among elders who exemplified Victorian values of stoicism and quiet decency. In these stories of innocence and experience, he recalls the games they played, the places they discovered, and the legends they made of the normal, the boring, and the everyday wonders of an old world seen through young eyes. "The Reluctant Dragon," the centerpiece of Dream Days, is a story about a young boy who discovers a wise, poetry-loving dragon while exploring the Berkshire Downs near his home in Oxfordshire. Against all appearances, the two sensitive souls become fast friends. When the townspeople discover the dragon, however, they send for the legendary St. George to slay the creature they see as a threat. Faced with the loss of his only friend in the world, the young boy must convince St. George to not only spare the dragon's life, but to convince the townspeople of his kind and gentle nature. Dream Days is a collection of stories for children which finds room for fantasy and adventure in the smallest of places, and kindness in the largest of hearts.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Kenneth Grahame's Dream Days is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Other editions - View all

Dream Days
Kenneth Grahame
No preview available - 2017
Dream Days
Kenneth Grahame
No preview available - 2015
Dream Days
Kenneth Grahame
No preview available - 2016
View all »

About the author (2007)

Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh on March 3, 1859. When he was five years old, his mother died of scarlet fever and he nearly died himself, of the same disease. His father became an alcoholic and sent the children to Berkshire to live with relatives. They were later reunited with their father, but after a failed year, the children never heard from him again. Sometime later, one of his brothers died at the age of fifteen. He attended St. Edward's School as a child and intended to go on to Oxford University, but his relatives wanted him to go into banking. He worked in his uncle's office, in Westminster, for two years then went to work at the Bank of England as a clerk in 1879. He spent nearly thirty years there and became the Secretary of the Bank at the age of thirty-nine. He retired from the bank right before The Wind in the Willows was published in 1908. He wrote essays on topics that included smoking, walking and idleness. Many of the essays were published as the book Pagan Papers (1893) and the five orphan characters featured in the papers were developed into the books The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). The Wind in the Willows (1908) was based on bedtime stories and letters to his son and it is where the characters Rat, Badger, Mole and Toad were created. In 1930, Milne's stage version was brought to another audience in Toad of Toad Hall. Grahame died on July 6, 1932.

Bibliographic information

TitleDream Days
AuthorKenneth Grahame
PublisherIndyPublish.com, 2007
ISBN1435322681, 9781435322684
Length116 pages
Subjects › 

Fiction / General
Juvenile Fiction / Classics
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan