Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter, or Helen Beatrix Potter was an
English children's book author and
illustrator. Her most famous character is
Peter Rabbit.
Her father, Rupert Potter, although educated as a
barrister, spent his days at Gentlemen's clubs and rarely practised. Her mother spent her time visiting or receiving visitors. Both parents lived on incomes from their parents. Nannies and governesses raised Beatrix and her younger brother, Bertram. When she came of age, her parents appointed her their housekeeper and discouraged any intellectual development, instead requiring her to supervise the household.
Encyclopedia
Beatrix Potter, or
Helen Beatrix Potter was an
English children's book author and
illustrator. Her most famous character is
Peter Rabbit.
Her father, Rupert Potter, although educated as a
barrister, spent his days at Gentlemen's clubs and rarely practised. Her mother spent her time visiting or receiving visitors. Both parents lived on incomes from their parents. Nannies and governesses raised Beatrix and her younger brother, Bertram. When she came of age, her parents appointed her their housekeeper and discouraged any intellectual development, instead requiring her to supervise the household. An uncle attempted to introduce her as a student at the
Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, but she was rejected because she was female.
The basis of her many projects and stories were the small animals that she smuggled into the house or observed during family holidays in
Scotland and the
Lake District.
Potter was one of the first to suggest that
lichens were a
symbiotic relationship between
fungi and
algae, but her one attempt to publish was thwarted. Her uncle had to read her paper at the scientific society because they did not admit females. At the time the only way to record microscopic images was by painting them; her pictures of fungi were widely admired.
She was encouraged to publish her story,
The Tale of Peter Rabbit, but she struggled to find a publisher until it was accepted in 1902. The small book and her following works were extremely well received and she gained an independent income from the sales. She also became secretly engaged to the publisher, Norman Warne, but her parents were set against her marrying anyone who worked for a living. He died before the wedding, causing a breach between Beatrix and her parents.
From an early age, Potter was a writer. From the age of fifteen until she was past thirty, she recorded her everyday life in journals, using her own secret code-writing. Potter wrote 23 books. These were published in a small format, easy for a child to hold and read. Her writing efforts abated around 1920 due to poor eyesight, though her last major work,
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, was published in 1930.
In her later years she bought and ran a sheep farm in the English
Lake District; she loved the landscape, and with the steady stream of royalties from her books, along with the inheritance from her parents, she bought up large areas of local land. She had been a friend of one of the founders of the
National Trust, and in her will, much of the property was left to the Trust — cottages, 15 farms, 4000 acres of land — to ensure that its beauty could remain unspoiled. Her legacy is now part of the
Lake District National Park. Her most famous books were published by Frederick Warne & Company since 1902.
At the age of 47, Beatrix Potter married her
solicitor, William Heelis; they had no children. She died in Sawrey, Lancashire on December 22, 1943.
1971 saw the release of
The Tales of Beatrix Potter directed by Reginald Mills. Several of the 'Tales' were set to music and danced by the members of
The Royal Ballet including
Frederick Ashton who was also the choreographer.
In 1982 the BBC produced
The Tale of Beatrix Potter. This dramatization of her life was written by John Hawkesworth and directed by Bill Hayes. It starred Holly Aird and
Penelope Wilton as the young and adult Beatrix respectively.
The Tale of Pigling Bland was turned into a musical theatrical production by Suzy Conn and was first performed July 6, 2006 at the Toronto Fringe Festival in Toronto Canada.
Miss Potter, a
biopic movie starring
Renee Zellwegger will be released in early 2007.
The modern author Susan Wittig Albert publishes a series of mysteries featuring a fictionalized Beatrix Potter, focusing on the period of her life between her fiance's death and her eventual establishment as a farmer in Sawrey, Lancashire.
List of works by Beatrix Potter
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit
- The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
- The Tailor of Gloucester
- The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
- The Tale of Two Bad Mice
- The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
- The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan
- The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
- The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit
- The Story of Miss Moppet
- The Tale of Tom Kitten
- The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
- The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, The Roly-Poly Pudding
- The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
- The Tale of Ginger and Pickles
- The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse
- The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes
- The Tale of Mr. Tod
- The Tale of Pigling Bland
- Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
- The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse
- Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes
- The Fairy Caravan
- The Tale of Little Pig Robinson
See also
- The Tales of Beatrix Potter
External links
