The Fellow That Goes Alone: An Essay On Walking

A Peculiar Parish Edition by Kenneth Grahame
12 pages

“The best sort of walk is the one on which it doesn’t matter twopence whether you get anywhere at all.”

Five years after the publication of The Wind in the Willows, author Kenneth Grahame penned a succinct essay for his old school magazine at Saint Edward’s in Oxford. In it, he celebrates the profound and simple joy to be found in walking, and why a companion isn’t necessarily a benefit on the journey.

Earthy and transcendent, as is all of Grahame’s best work, The Fellow That Goes Alone conjures creative escape and a feeling of wholeness for anyone able and willing to wander out-of-doors, no matter the responsibilities awaiting them at the end of the road.

This essay was originally published in 1913, and has never before been issued as a standalone publication. Our new edition draws design inspiration and ornament from the same year’s issues of Fra Elbertus’ American monthly The Philistine.

Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) was a British author most famous for his children’s classic The Wind in the Willows, as well as The Reluctant Dragon. Beloved to this day for his perceptive understanding of childhood wonder and doubt through the animal characters in his stories, Grahame was also a contributor to the St. James Gazette and The Yellow Book.