Edit] Artistic and literary career

First edition, 1902

Potter’s artistic and literary interests were deeply influenced by fairies, fairy tales and fantasy. She was a student of the classic fairy tales of Western Europe. As well as stories from the Old Testament, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, she grew up with Aesop’s Fables, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies,^[31] the folk tales and mythology of Scotland, the German Romantics, Shakespeare,^[32] and the romances of Sir Walter Scott.^[33] As a young child, before the age of eight, Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense, including the much loved The Owl and the Pussycat, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland had made their impression, although she later said of Alice that she was more interested in Tenniel's illustrations than what they were about.^[34] The Brer Rabbit stories of Joel Chandler Harris had been family favourites and she later studied his Uncle Remus stories and illustrated them.^[35] She studied book illustration from a young age and developed her own tastes, but the work of the picture book triumvirate Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott, the last an illustrator whose work was later collected by her father, was a great influence.^[36] When she started to illustrate, she chose first the traditional rhymes and stories, "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "Puss-in-boots", and "Red Riding Hood".^[37] But most often her illustrations were fantasies featuring her own pets: mice, rabbits, kittens, and guinea pigs.^[38]

In her teenage years Potter was a regular visitor to the art galleries of London, particularly enjoying the summer and winter exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London.^[39] Her Journal reveals her growing sophistication as a critic as well as the influence of her father’s friend the artist Sir John Everett Millais who recognised Beatrix’s talent of observation. Although Potter was aware of art and artistic trends, her drawing and her prose style were uniquely her own.^[40]

As a way to earn a bit of money in the 1890s, Beatrix and her brother began to print Christmas cards of their own design, as well as cards for special occasions. Mice and rabbits were the most frequent subject of her fantasy paintings. In 1890 the firm of Hildesheimer and Faulkner bought several of her drawings of her rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, to illustrate verses by Frederic Weatherly titled A Happy Pair. In 1893 the same printer brought several more drawings for Weatherly’s Our Dear Relations, another book of rhymes, and the following year Potter successfully sold a series of frog illustrations and verses for Changing Pictures, a popular annual offered by the art publisher Ernest Nister. Potter was pleased by this success and determined to publish her own illustrated stories.^[41]

Whenever Potter went on holiday to the Lake District or Scotland, she sent letters to young friends illustrating them with quick sketches. Many of these letters were written to the children of her former governess Annie Carter Moore, particularly to her eldest son Noel who was often ill. In September 1893 Potter was on holiday at Eastwood in Dunkeld, Perthshire. She had run out of things to say to Noel and so she told him a story about "four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." It became one of the most famous children’s letters ever written and the basis of Potter’s future career as a writer-artist-storyteller.^[42]

In 1900, Potter revised her tale about the four little rabbits, and fashioned a dummy book of it - it has been suggested, in imitation of Helen Bannerman's 1899 bestseller The Story of Little Black Sambo.^[43] Unable to find a buyer for the work, she published it for family and friends at her own expense in December 1901. It was drawn in black and white with a coloured frontispiece. Family friend Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley had great faith in Potter's tale, recast it in didactic verse, and made the rounds of the London publishing houses. Frederick Warne & Co. had previously rejected the tale but, eager to compete in the booming small format children's book market, reconsidered and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) following the recommendation of their prominent children's book artist L. Leslie Brooke.^[44] The firm declined Rawnsley's verse in favour of Potter's original prose, and Potter agreed to colour her pen and ink illustrations, choosing the then-new Hentschel three-colour process for reproducing her watercolours.^[45]

Potter used many real locations for her book illustrations, the Tower Bank Arms, Near Sawrey appears in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

On 2 October 1902 The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published,^[46] and was an immediate success. It was followed the next year by The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester which had also first been written as picture letters to the Moore children. Working with Norman Warne as her editor, Potter published two or three little books each year for a total of twenty-three books. The last book in this format was Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes in 1922, a collection of favourite rhymes. Although The Tale of Pigling Bland was not published until 1930, it had been written much earlier. Potter continued creating her little books until after the First World War when her energies were increasingly directed toward her farming, sheep-breeding and land conservation.^[47]

The immense popularity of Potter’s books was based on the lively quality of her illustrations, the non-didactic nature of her stories, the depiction of the rural countryside, and the imaginative qualities she lent to her animal characters.

Potter was also a canny businesswoman. As early as 1903 she made and patented a Peter Rabbit doll. It was followed by other "spin-off" merchandise over the years, including painting books, board games, wall-paper, figurines, baby blankets and china tea-sets. All were licensed by Frederick Warne & Co. and earned Potter an independent income as well as immense profits for her publisher.^[48]

In 1905, Potter and Norman Warne became unofficially engaged. Potters’ parents objected to the match because Warne was "in trade" and thus not socially suitable. Sadly the engagement lasted only one month when Warne died of leukemia at age thirty-seven.^[49] That same year Potter used some of her income and a small inheritance from an aunt to buy Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in Lancashire in the English Lake District. Potter and Warne may have hoped that Hill Top Farm would be their holiday home, but after Warne's death Potter went ahead with its purchase as she had always wanted to own that farm and live in "that charming village".^[50]

Edit] Country life

Hill Top, Near Sawrey – Potter's former home, now owned by the National Trust and preserved as it was when she lived and wrote her stories there.

The tenant farmer John Cannon and his family agreed to stay on to manage the farm for her while she made physical improvements learned the techniques of fell farming and of raising livestock, including pigs, cows and chickens; the following year she added sheep. Realising she needed to protect her boundaries she sought advice from W.H. Heelis & Son, a local firm of solicitors with offices in nearby Hawkshead. With William Heelis acting for her she bought contiguous pasture, and in 1909 the 20 acres (81,000 m²) Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top Farm. Visiting Hill Top every chance she got, Potter’s books written during this period (such as The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, about the local shop in Near Sawrey and The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, a wood mouse) reflect her increasing participation in village life and her delight in country living.^[51]

Owning and managing these working farms required the routine collaboration with the widely respected William Heelis. By the summer of 1912 Heelis had proposed marriage and Beatrix had accepted, although she did not immediately tell her parents who once again disapproved because Heelis was only a country solicitor. Potter and Heelis were married on 15 October 1913 in London at St. Mary Abbots in Kensington. The couple moved immediately to Near Sawrey, residing at Castle Cottage, the renovated farm house on Castle Farm. Hill Top remained a working farm but was now remodelled to allow for the tenant family and Potter’s private studio and work shop. At last her own woman, Potter settled into the partnerships that shaped the rest of her life: her country solicitor husband and his large family, her farms, the Sawrey community and the predictable rounds of country life. The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck and The Tale of Tom Kitten are representative of Hill Top Farm and of her farming life, and reflect her happiness with her country life.^[52]

After Rupert Potter died in 1914, Potter, now a wealthy woman, found Lindeth Howe, a large house in nearby Windermere where her mother lived until her death in 1931 at the age of 93. Potter continued to write stories for Frederick Warne & Co. and fully participated in country life. She established a Nursing Trust for local villages, and served on various committees and councils responsible for footpaths and other country life issues.^[53]

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 649