BEATRIX POTTER

Despite not going to school Beatrix was an enthusiastic student of nature, teaching herself while painting and drawing the things she saw around her. Her childhood sketches reveal an early fascination for the subject which would continue throughout her life. She also painted many exquisite landscapes that show her pleasure in the countryside.

Beatrix and her brother, Bertram, kept many animals in their schoolroom, from mice to birds and lizards to snakes. Beatrix Potter's pets were often subjects for sketches and paintings, and were later to inspire the much-loved characters in her books. 

 

On family holidays outside London, she enjoyed sketching landscapes. She made realistic studies of animals and birds but her imaginative art features rabbits wearing bibs and mice whose paws are busy with spinning, knitting and sewing. She left a large body of remarkable scientific illustrations on fossils, archaeological finds, mosses and lichens, wild flowers, microscope drawings and, most importantly, fungi, which she donated to the Armitt Trust.

In 1893 Beatrix Potter wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit in a picture letter to a little boy she knew who had been ill for a long time. In 1901 she went on to privately print 250 copies of the tale in time for Christmas. A sign of the future success of this little story, these first copies sold very quickly at a shilling each, meaning she quickly had to print another 200 two weeks later. 

The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902 with an initial 8000 copies printed and the tale has never been out of print since. She went on to publish another 22 little books over the next 28 years, the proceeds from which enabled her to buy Hill Top Farm in the Lake District. Eventually she went on to own 15 farms and over 4,000 acres of land in the area.