Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, mycologist, and conservationist who is best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit.
Born into a wealthy household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets, and through holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developed a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Because she was a woman, her parents discouraged intellectual development, but her study and paintings of fungi led her to be widely respected in the field of mycology.
In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit and became secretly engaged to her publisher, Norman Warne, causing a breach with her parents, who disapproved of his social status. Warne died before the wedding.
Potter eventually published 24 children's books, the most recent being The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots (2016), and having become financially independent of her parents, was able to buy a farm in the Lake District, which she extended with other purchases over time.
In her forties, she married a local solicitor, William Heelis. She became a sheep breeder and farmer while continuing to write and illustrate children's books. Potter died in 1943 and left almost all of her property to The National Trust in order to preserve the beauty of the Lake District as she had known it, protecting it from developers.
Potter's books continue to sell well throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in various formats, including a ballet, films, and in animation.
“There's something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you. Mine took me here, where I belong.”
“But not even Hitler can damage the fells'In 'The Tale of Beatrix Potter, A Autobiography' by Margaret Lane, first edition, page 170.”
“It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born. My brother and I were born in London...but our descent, our interest and our joy were in the north country'.Quoted in The Tale of Beatrix Potter a Biography by Margaret Lane, First Edition p 32-33”
“Peter lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.”
“Tuesday, November 17th. 1896...I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense.”
“Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.”
“The place is changed now, and many familiar faces are gone, but the greatest change is myself. I was a child then, I had no idea what the world would be like. I wished to trust myself on the waters and the sea. Everything was romantic in my imagination. The woods were peopled by the mysterious good folk. The Lords and Ladies of the last century walked with me along the overgrown paths, and picked the old fashioned flowers among the box and rose hedges of the garden.”
“Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: "One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime.”
“Sunday, January 27, 1884. -- There was another story in the paper a week or so since. A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat's plate. One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master's plate, the other on its own.”
“Thank goodness my education was neglected.”
“I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”
“All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. . . . Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”
“In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.”
“I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.”
“Thank God I have the seeing eye, that is to say, as I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough land seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton pass where my old legs will never take me again.”
“I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding”
“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.”
“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were--Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. ”
“This is a fierce bad rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.”
“It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'.”
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”
“No more twist!”
“Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”