Beatrix Potter Creates Peter Rabbit,
September 4, 1893

n this day, while on holiday in Scotland with her family, aspiring naturalist Beatrix Potter penned a note to cheer the son of a friend, a little lad who had been confined to his bed by illness. One more note of well wishes for a speedy recovery would not have stood out at all, and being a woman of imagination and compassion intertwined, Beatrix wrote the ailing child a story instead. An eight page letter to be exact, with scribbled illustrations accompanying the tale and describing the doings of a very special family of bunnies and their adventurous blue-coated brother whom she christened Peter Rabbit.

“My dear Noel,
I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter. They lived with their mother in a sand bank under the root of a big fir tree.
“Now my dears,” said old Mrs. Bunny, “you may go into the field or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden.”
Flopsy, Mopsy & Cottontail, who were good little rabbits, went down the lane to gather blackberries, but Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden and squeezed underneath the gate...”

From this simple letter sprang the beginnings of a children’s book that would be cemented as a nursery staple for generations of wholesome folk who found her gentle and moral tales to be whimsical yet strangely poignant as much of childhood itself is, full of fleeting magic, and impressionable wonder. She captured it anew in her stories and enhanced them by her evocative watercolored scenes whose blurred edges faded into the parchment as fuzzy as our imaginations’ own borders. In her future works—tales of Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle Duck, A Tale of Two Bad Mice and others—Beatrix Potter forever retained her simple and joyful tone, as if each bestselling book was indeed just another letter to a little friend in need of enrichment, and a cracked door into the rich world of make-believe.

Beatrix Potter in 1894 with her father Rupert and brother Bertram

Beatrix Potter herself was born in 1866 in London to second-generation wealth, derived from tough, northern mill-owning stock. Potter grew up with a fascination for animals and a prodigious talent for portraying them visually with her pen, thanks in great part to her father who shared her inclinations. Frequent holiday-goers, the Potters were fond of visiting Scotland and Cumbria’s Lake District, and Beatrix would accompany her parents each year, as she remained single into her early thirties. It was on one of these trips she wrote the letter of Peter Rabbit, having no idea at the time that this small account of bunny adventures would prove the inception of her authorship and financial independence.

The stunning vistas of England’s famous Lake District never ceased to inspire Beatrix Potter

Nine years, many failed suitors, and seven publishing firms later, Beatrix Potter would find herself the published author of what her own publishers derisively called “the bunny book”. To everyone’s immense surprise, The Tale of Peter Rabbit proved an immediate success and brought Beatrix Potter great acclaim, selling an initial 20,000 copies the first year and requiring six reprints.

The cover of the first edition of Peter Rabbit, 1902

It also brought Potter love and companionship as Norman Warne—the youngest brother of her publishers, Frederick Warne & Co.—became her chief advocate in all business and artistic decisions. After three years of intense companionship, he also became her fiancé. Sadly, her parents highly disapproved of the match, citing the class divide between a gentleman’s daughter like Beatrix and a man in trade like Norman. Hoping a separation might cool the engaged parties’ enthusiasm, the Potters left London for a four-month holiday in Wales and took Beatrix with them. Tragedy struck while she was away, and, with hardly any warning of serious illness beforehand, Norman Warne died leaving Beatrix utterly bereft.

Grieving, and presuming a future of spinsterly solitude, Beatrix threw herself into her work then, writing and producing more and more bestsellers while plotting an escape from London, its dreaded social scene, urban frenzy and painful associations. Having remained an avid naturalist, Potter chose the idyllic and nostalgic locale of Cumbria, and capitalizing on her new wealth, purchased one of the largest estates then going into disrepair: Hilltop House. This would begin a lifetime pursuit in preservation of her new surroundings and a deep-seated interest in aiding the fast-dwindling communities of old Cumbria. She wrote books still—a total of twenty-eight, as the Lake District never failed her for inspiration—but in later life she took more and more pride in these community pursuits, and enjoyed an election to the presidency of the Sheep Breeder’s Association.

Herdwicks, the local sheep of Cumbria

In 1913 Potter married her neighbor—a lawyer by the name of William Heelis—and together they are credited with the substantial preservation of the indescribably picturesque Lake District as a mostly undisturbed place for us to enjoy. She passed away in 1943 in the midst of a world war, and her obituary was characteristically unassuming, declaring her to be a “beloved children’s author and sheep breeder”. Unmentioned was her legacy of over 200 million copies sold and as many little lives enriched by her shared appreciation of all creatures great and small.

The Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead, Cumbria, England

Image Credits: 1 The Rabbit Family (wikipedia.org) 2 Letter, page 1 (wikipedia.org) 3 Letter, page 2 (wikipedia.org) 4 Jemima (wikipedia.org) 5 Family (wikipedia.org) 6 Young Beatrix (wikipedia.org) 7 Lake District (wikipedia.org) 8 First Edition (wikipedia.org) 9 Norman Warne (wikipedia.org) 10 Beatrix at Hilltop (wikipedia.org) 11 Hilltop (wikipedia.org) 12 Herdwick Sheep (wikipedia.org) 13 Beatrix and William Heelis (wikipedia.org) 14 Beatrix Potter Gallery (wikipedia.org)