Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wall and lit it, and the Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A garden-seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller; for the Mole, who was a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having hiw ground kicked up by other animals into little runs that ended in earth heaps. On the walls hung wire baskets with ferns in them, alternating with brackets carrying plaster statuary — Garibaldi, and the infant Samuel and Queen Victoria, and other heroes of modern Italy. Down one side of the forecourt ran a skittle-alley, with benches along it and little wooden tables marked with rings that hinted at beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round pond containing goldfish and surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of the centre of the pond rose a fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells and topped by a large silvered glass ball that reflected everything all wrong and had a very pleasing effect.
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. A description of Mole’s underground home. He returns after a long absence, and after a near death experience in the Wild Wood.
Illustration by Kawakami Shiro ( 川上四郎 絵) forKodomo no kuni (Children’s Land), c1920s and 30sYuri Vasnetsov (Russian,1900-1973) – Sweet little sleeping mouse in his underground house. Humans evolved from a mouse like creature who survived the dinosaur apocalypse due to its ability to hide out underground. This mouse is all of us.Clement Hurd, American (1908-1988) for Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown, 1942Fritz Baumgarten postcard
Fritz Baumgarten (1883-1966) Illustration for an Easter book by Erich Heinemann
Fritz Baumgarten, 1979
Marco Vaccari
Anne of Green Gables illustration by Hanuol (Kim Ji Hyuck). “A Night Full of Stars” imagines a land below us equally bright and starlit as the world above.
The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Hoarde by Shannon HaleThe Whole World is My Burrow by Albert Ivanov illustrated by G. Zolotovskaya
Richard Scarry, The Golden Book
The Princess and the Goblin George MacDonald, art by Jessie Willcox SmithHarrison Cady (1877-1970)Ernest Howard Shepard (1879-1976), British illustrator. The Wind in the Willows, 1931 edition.
