A letter in which Kenneth Grahame writes about the suicide of his son, Alastair, sold at East Bristol Auctions for £1200.
Responding to a letter of condolence from someone who had known Alastair well, he writes: “The dear boy went back to Oxford this term so full of new plans and interests, with ‘Mods’ safely behind him, and liberty to follow a wider range of thought and reading. From all we can glean, his last days were specially happy ones.”
Alastair, who was born blind in one eye and was constantly plagued with health problems, took his own life on May 7, 1920 – just five days before his 20th birthday.
Grahame based The Wind in the Willows, first published in 1908, on stories he used to tell his son.
The sale took place on June 19.
