It’s a lyrical image: two young children wandering the English countryside with sketchbooks, plopping down suddenly in the tall grass to open their water color cases and start to paint.
This was childhood for Helen Beatrix Potter, whose love of art and animals led to the most successful children’s literature series of all time.
Beatrix, as she was known, was born in London on July 28, 1866. Her family was wealthy, and she and her younger brother were raised comfortably. Their parents believed strongly in education for boys and girls equally, and hired governesses to teach the children. They encouraged creativity as well.
Art teacher encouraged Beatrix to draw — and that’s exactly what she did. Her early models, pet rabbits named Benjamin Bouncer and Peter Piper, were replaced as subjects with dozens of other small animals that she and her brother kept as pets, including mice, frogs, snakes and hedgehogs, to name just a few.
The Potter family spent the summer months either in Scotland or England’s Lake District, where Beatrix and her brother wandered the countryside sketching and painting landscapes, flowers, animals and, of particular interest to Beatrix, mushrooms.
Her illustrated studies of fungi led to an invitation to study at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, where Beatrix honed her skills as a scientific illustrator. She developed her own theory of how fungi spores reproduced, but the research paper she wrote had to be presented by a man, since women at the time weren’t allowed membership to royal scientific societies. The paper was never published, but her hundreds of illustrations are now included in museum collections in England and Scotland.
At the same time, Beatrix continued to draw illustrations of her favorite fairy tales and books, and she and her brother created their own Christmas cards for friends. She was hired by a London publishing house to produce illustrations for children’s books, which led to her decision to publish her own.
She loved to send what she called ‘picture letters’ to children she knew, including the chronically ill son of her friend and former governess, Annie Moore. He was the first to receive a small little story about a rabbit named Peter, which Annie urged Beatrix to publish as a book. Beatrix agreed.
In 1901 she shopped The Tale of Peter Rabbit to several publishers, all of whom rejected it. She decided to publish the book herself, giving 250 copies as Christmas gifts to family and friends.
The story was a huge, charming hit, and Frederick Warne & Co., an English publishing house that had previously rejected the manuscript, agreed to publish it. It became a bestseller, and Beatrix published two new books, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester (about a mouse), the next year.
Beatrix enjoyed the life of upper middle class London, but she wanted money of her own. Recognizing the potential Peter Rabbit had as a brand, she licensed her creative work herself. In 1903 she designed the first Peter Rabbit stuffed doll and registered the patent immediately, making Peter Rabbit the world’s oldest licensed literary character.
She didn’t stop with dolls. Beatrix designed Peter Rabbit everything — tea sets, slippers, toys, painting books, a board game, even wallpaper — and kept creative control to ensure quality products that remained true to her characters.
With the money from her books, Beatrix bought a farm in the Lake District where she and her editor Norman Warne, who proposed to her in 1905, hoped to spend summers. Tragically, Norman died a month after they were engaged, leaving Beatrix heartbroken. She decided to go ahead with the purchase, and Hill Top Farm became her refuge. She eventually moved there permanently.
Beatrix managed the farm and led land preservation efforts, buying several additional farms to protect the rural area from development. She bred prize-winning Herdwick sheep, and in 1943 was named the first woman president of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders’ Association.
In 1913 she married William Heelis, a local solicitor, and they lived happily until her death in 1943. In that time, she continued to draw, paint watercolors, and publish books, including a handful of novels for adults.
Beatrix left her property — 15 farms and more than 4,000 acres of land — to the National Trust, which has preserved Hill Top Farm exactly as it was when she died. The Trust is also where she left almost all of the original illustrations to her books.
Today, Peter Rabbit is among the best-loved children’s characters of all time. Beatrix’s decision to retain editorial and business control of her stories was unique at the time, but became a model for writers and illustrators. And that first Peter Rabbit book? It makes an adorable baby gift too.