Dream Days

In Dream Days, Kenneth Grahame turns childhood into a realm where school lessons, family errands, and private obsessions all become part of a larger imaginative adventure. Edward lives for the British Army, the narrator for the animals of North America, Harold for birds' nests, and Selina for naval history, her mind vividly inhabiting Trafalgar and the heroic age of Nelson despite never having seen the sea. Grahame's playful irony celebrates these eccentric loyalties while gently mocking adult ideas of education. Across autumn afternoons, bonfires, bruised pride, and domestic mishaps, the children's feelings swing between comedy and solemnity. Selina's patriotic reverie erupts into a reckless bonfire and then humiliation when Aunt Eliza discovers the damage; Martha's grief over her drowned sailor brother Billy introduces a sudden, childlike encounter with death. Elsewhere, the narrator's wounded dignity sparks fantasies of army command, piracy, and secret worlds beyond reach. In a book-lined study, an illustrated foreign manuscript transforms a familiar town into a place of wonder, urging the child toward its hidden festivities and mysteries. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.