Its enthusiasm for Grahame's writing derives from his ability to articulate its most deeply cherished images of itself, to communicate deeply felt needs of his own that are also culturally representative. The circumstances of Grahame's life are thus crucial to an assessment both of his achievements and of his limitations.
Kenneth Grahame was born in Castle Street, Edinburgh, on 8 March 1859. He was the third child and second son of Bessie and James Cunningham Grahame, a well-liked advocate and gastronome who paid more attention to his table than to his legal practice. The Grahame family was a thoroughly prosperous and respectable one, and the only creative writer it had produced prior to Kenneth was his great-granduncle, James Grahame, whose lengthy and somber poem The Sabbath (1804) had briefly attracted George Gordon, Lord Byron's ironic attention in English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers (1809). Apart from this one outbreak of imaginative energy, the Grahames had mostly devoted their labors to the law and to finance, a tradition which was to have an unfortunate impact on Kenneth's future.
In 1860 Cunningham Grahame made the surprising decision to leave his moderate practice and flourishing social life in Edinburgh and accepted an appointment as sheriff-substitute of Argyll, which necessitated a move to Inveraray in the western Highlands.
