Grahame, Kenneth: Pagan Papers (Essay Collection). v1. 03 Dec 2015
 

Pagan Papers by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)

First publiished 1893. The text of this book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.


By the author of The Wind in the Willows, The Golden Age, Dream Days, The Headswoman.

Grahame’s first book. These literary essays appeared in the St James's Gazette and the National Observer from 1888–1893. This collection serves up an array of witty, wryly humorous, and sometimes poetically lyrical examinations of the human condition. (Caveat emptor: the reader needs some fluency in Latin and French to enjoy the full flavor of myriad untranslated remarks and quotations).

These eighteen short pieces range from discussions of the mundane enjoyments of loafing, smoking, and book-collecting; to reflections on the author’s deeply-rooted love of the natural world, flavored with an occasional touch of mysticism. The style is quite unlike that of The Wind in the Willows (1908), although you can glimpse some of the early roots of that children’s classic peeking through.

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Formatted and Anglicized punctuation, restored italics and diacritics. Cross-linked chapter titles to in-line Table of Contents. Embedded fonts.
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All these essays are really short, so you can pick one up whenever you have 5 free minutes.