Toad Hall (The Wind in the Willows) Toad Hall (The Wind in the Willows) Toad Hall is the fictional home of Mr. Toad, a character in the 1908 novel, "The Wind in the Willows", by Kenneth Grahame. On his retirement from the Bank of England in 1908, Grahame returned to Blewbury in Berkshire, the county in which he had grown up. In October that year he published "The Wind in the Willows", a novel for children featuring an array of anthropomorphic characters, including Rat (a water vole), Mole, Badger and Toad. Toad lives in a house on the edge of the River Bank, Toad Hall. The novel
Scottish literature in the eighteenth century Adventures of Peregrine Pickle" mean that he is often seen as Scotland's first novelist. Other Scots who contributed to the development of the novel in the eighteenth century include Henry Mackenzie, John Moore and Jean Marishall. After the Union in 1707 Scottish literature developed a distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) was the most important literary figure of the era, often described as leading a "vernacular revival". He laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, publishing "The Ever Green" (1724), a collection that included many major poetic works