Toad is rich, jovial, friendly, and kindhearted, but sometimes arrogant and rash; he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly.

Mole goes to the Wild Wood on a snowy winter's day, hoping to meet the elusive but virtuous and wise Badger.

Attempting to find their way home, Mole barks his shin on the boot scraper on Badger's doorstep.

Badger welcomes Rat and Mole to his large, cosy underground home, providing them with hot food, dry clothes, and reassuring conversation.

Badger learns from his visitors that Toad has crashed seven cars, has been in hospital three times, and has spent a fortune on fines.

Armed to the teeth, Badger, Rat, Mole, and Toad enter through the tunnel and pounce upon the unsuspecting Wild-Wooders who are holding a celebratory party.

Notable illustrators include Paul Bransom (1913), Nancy Barnhart (1922), Wyndham Payne (1927), Ernest H. Shepard (1931), Arthur Rackham (1940), Richard Cuffari (1966), Tasha Tudor (1966), Michael Hague (1980), Scott McKowen (2005), and Robert Ingpen (2007).

The critics, who were hoping for a third volume in the style of Grahame's earlier works, The Golden Age and Dream Days, generally gave negative reviews.

My mother was drawn to the second group, of which "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" was her favourite, read to me again and again with always, towards the end, the catch in the voice and the long pause to find her handkerchief and blow her nose.

[28] Simon Winchester suggested that the character of Ratty was based on Frederick Furnivall, a keen oarsman and acquaintance of Grahame.

[30] The Scotsman[31] and Oban Times[32] suggested The Wind in the Willows was inspired by the Crinan Canal, because Grahame spent some of his childhood in Ardrishaig.

There is a proposal that the idea for the story arose when its author saw a water vole beside the River Pang in Berkshire, southern England.