Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  Warne’s interest in Beatrix’s book had been renewed in part because of her insistence on the book’s size and format. To remain competitive in the broadening children’s literature market, Frederick Warne & Co. needed a book to compete with Bannerman’s Little Black Sambo. But Potter appeared resistant to the idea of coloured illustrations. The ‘bunny book’, as the Warne editors now referred to it, had appeal, but the artist-writer was unknown and publishing it would be an expensive gamble. Moreover, it was their view that the latter portion of the story ‘does not appear… to carry out the promise of the earlier part’.32

  Warne thanked Rawnsley for his efforts, but explained that ‘it is absolutely necessary that the pictures should be coloured throughout. Miss Potter seems to think the colour would be uninteresting, so that as we differ so materially on this point and also as it is almost too late to produce a book for this season, we think it best to decline your kind offer, at any rate this year.’ The editors had, however, taken the trouble to offer suggestions for improvement, recommending that the number of illustrations be cut from forty-two to thirty-two, all in colour, and marked which ones might best be eliminated. They politely told Rawnsley that while ‘there were many good ideas’ in his rhymes, they preferred simple narration ‘which has been very effectively used in a little book produced last year entitled “Little Black Sambo…” ’, and waited to see what Potter’s response might be.33

  The tactful letter from Warne’s to Rawnsley made Beatrix realize that the tone of her earlier letter had been a mistake and that she was dealing with no ordinary ‘Grub Street’ publisher. Warne’s were treating her professionally and, she had to admit, they had more knowledge about the children’s book market than she. Although she would have to cut the book down considerably if she accepted their terms, she realized that by incorporating their suggestions she might have both a privately printed edition and a trade publication with the potential of commercial success. In a letter now lost, Beatrix told the publisher she was amenable to their suggestions and sent a few more coloured illustrations for their review, along with a copy of her privately printed edition.34

  Warne’s then asked L. Leslie Brooke, one of their most successful picture-book illustrators, to give his opinion of her drawings, as Brooke had an unerring sense of how children reacted to art. Brooke took them home with him one evening and returned the next day with an enthusiastic endorsement. His recommendation happily coincided with the publication of Bannerman’s second book, The Story of Little Black Mingo, and the imminent publication of more golliwog books, and J. M. Dent’s series, the ‘Bairn Books’. The small picture-book market was booming and by acquiring Potter’s ‘bunny book’, Warne’s could be a competitor in it.35

  The firm of Frederick Warne & Co. had been founded in 1865. Although Frederick Warne inherited some good titles from his previous partnership with Routledge, he liked to say that his success came from buying the British rights to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But in fact Warne built up a large list of world literature, and had successfully published the work of such illustrators as Edward Lear, Kate Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott and Leslie Brooke. In addition, the firm had a reputation for fine books on natural history. This line was further enhanced when Edward Step, a keen botanist and entomologist, joined the editorial staff about the time that Potter began her relationship with them. His early titles in the ‘Wayside and Woodland’ series set a new standard for practical natural science handbooks for the general reader.36

  Frederick Warne retired from active management in 1894, turning over control of the business to his three sons, Harold, Fruing and Norman, before his death in 1901. The offices were in the Chandos Building on Bedford Street, off the Strand. Harold was the managing partner, Fruing was primarily responsible for sales, while Norman, the youngest son, handled production and some sales. The two older Warne sons were both married. Norman, who was 33 when he met Beatrix in 1901, lived with his unmarried sister Amelia, known as Millie, and his widowed mother in the family house in Bedford Square in Bloomsbury. In her negotiations over the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix almost always dealt with Norman Warne. Their letters began quite formally, mostly having to do with the terms of a contract and the ownership of copyright, but by the time final terms had been agreed upon, their form of address had progressed from ‘Madam’ and ‘Sir’, to ‘Miss Potter’ and ‘Mr Warne’.37

  Beatrix was adamant that the price of her book be kept as low as possible. She also made it clear that she was now negotiating for herself, telling the publisher, ‘I do not know if it is necessary to consult Canon Rawnsley; I should think not. Speaking for myself I consider your terms very liberal as regards royalty.’ Initially she agreed to an edition of 5,000 copies with only coloured pictures selling for 1s. 6d., giving her a royalty of 3d. on each. It would amount to a total royalty of approximately £20. ‘I am sure’, she wrote, ‘no one is likely to offer me better… and I am aware that these little books don’t last long, even if they are a success.’ She was more intent on the issue of reprint rights, questioning Warne carefully about who would own copyright and what her rights were should they not choose to reprint. She candidly expressed her uneasiness about her father’s inevitable review of any contract. ‘I have not spoken to Mr Potter, but I think Sir, it would be well to explain the agreement clearly, because he is a little formal having been a barrister.’ Beatrix may have been 35 years old, but as an unmarried daughter, she could not enter any legal or financial agreements without her father’s consent.38

  Negotiations dragged into the following year and it was eventually agreed that ownership of the blocks would be transferred to Potter should there be no subsequent editions. Finally a contract was signed in early June 1902. The delay did not bother Beatrix, nor did the consequent reduction in royalty per copy. Her correspondence throughout these months reflects her willingness to comply with the publisher’s suggestions and a growing enjoyment of the whole process. Rupert Potter undoubtedly accompanied his daughter to the Warne office to review the final contract. Apprehensive about their meeting, Beatrix cautioned the publishers:

  If my father happens to insist on going with me to see the agreement, would you please not mind him very much, if he is fidgetty [sic] about things. I am afraid it is not a very respectful way of talking & I don’t wish to refer to it again, but I think it is better to mention beforehand he is sometimes a little difficult; I can of course do what I like about the book being 36. I suppose it is a habit of old gentlemen; but sometimes rather trying.39

  While all these negotiations were taking place, Beatrix was happily distributing copies of her private edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit to enthusiastic readers. She usually inscribed the copies to relatives and family friends, writing in one: ‘In affectionate remembrance of poor old Peter Rabbit, who died on the 26th of January 1901 at the end of his 9th year… whatever the limitations of his intellect or outward shortcomings of his fur, and his ears and toes, his disposition was uniformly amiable and his temper unfailingly sweet. An affectionate companion and a quiet friend.’ Beatrix was a natural marketer, exhibiting none of the inhibitions and shyness that plagued her in other social circumstances, and adept at impressing her would-be publisher that their version would also be an equal success. She reported to Warne, ‘It is going off very well amongst my friends & relations, 5 at a time; I will spread it about as much as I can, especially in Manchester. Had you decided not to go on with it, I would certainly have done so myself, it has given me so much amusement.’40

  She was also quick to pass along a potential commercial interest: ‘I showed it this morning to some ladies who have a bookshop in Kensington who wanted to put it in the window, on the spot; but I did not venture to do so — though I would have been much interested.’ Seizing on the potential Christmas market, she wrote to a family friend: ‘I am sending with this 2 copies of a funny little book which came home from the printer’s last night. I think I may say I have shown considerable spirit in bringin
g it out myself!… If you should hear of anyone who would care for two or three copies at 1/ and 2d postage I should be glad to part with a few; but I am afraid everyone will have bought their grandchildren’s presents by this time.’ To another friend who had ordered five copies, Beatrix generously threw in a sixth, writing: ‘I am amused to hear that you like the rabbit book… I daresay you can think of someone to give the extra copy to. I think my mother told you ½ which is the cost price as far as I can reckon.’ A month earlier she had reported appreciation from a well-regarded source: ‘I do not know if it is worth while mentioning — but Dr Conan Doyle [the creator of Sherlock Holmes] had a copy for his children & he has a good opinion of the story & words.’41

  Quite soon she had given away or sold out her the first printing of 250 copies; she ordered 200 more since she had printed extra copies of the coloured frontispiece. The new edition had one or two changes in the text and the date of February 1902 printed on the title page. It too was soon sold out. In late April 1902, as she prepared to travel with Bertram in the Scottish Borders, she could not resist telling Norman Warne, ‘The book seems to go on of itself, I had requests for 9 copies yesterday from 3 people I do not know.’ During their holiday she prevailed upon Bertram, who drew human figures far better than she, to help her with the figure of Mr McGregor. ‘My brother is sarcastic about the figures,’ she wrote to the publisher from Scotland, ‘what you & he take for Mr McGregor’s nose, was intended for his ear, not his nose at all.’ She had even more trouble with the illustration of Mrs McGregor serving the pie containing the remains of Peter’s father. It took several tries to get a younger, more appealing woman, but as it was never really successful it was dropped from later editions.42

  Beatrix and Bertram spent two weeks in Roxburghshire working compatibly together on their respective art. Despite their difference in age, the two had always been close, but Bertram’s dependence on alcohol was now silently acknowledged. While they enjoyed being together, it is not clear what confidences they shared, or whether Bertram confided his plans to marry. Six months later, on 20 November 1902, Bertram eloped with Mary Welsh Scott and was married in Edinburgh. Bertram had met Mary in Birnam, in Perthshire, where he frequently spent his holidays after leaving Oxford, taking rooms with Mrs Emily Hutton in the house behind Heath Park. Mary Scott was one of Hutton’s nieces, who helped with summer visitors. The story is told in Birnam that Bertram saw Mary’s photograph in the dining room of the boarding house one summer and fell in love with her before they ever met.43

  Beatrix later described Mary as ‘a large, fresh-faced woman’. She was about three years younger than Bertram, the daughter of a wine merchant in the Border town of Hawick, where she had once worked in the textile mills. Their civil ceremony was witnessed by John Purves, a writer friend of Bertram’s, and by Mary’s sister Lizzie. Bertram listed his profession as landscape painter and gave his address as Throsk House in Stirling, where the couple lived until 1903 when Bertram bought Ashyburn, a farm near the idyllic village of Ancrum in the Scottish Borders. Keeping the marriage a secret from his family, Bertram and Mary settled down to a life of farming. Mary was devoted to him and, although they had no children, they were by all accounts very happy.44

  For the next eleven years Bertram lived out a terrible lie, dutifully spending some portion of his summer holidays with his parents and sister, and making perfunctory visits to Bolton Gardens at appropriate intervals. In April 1906 Bertram’s candidacy for membership in the Athenaeum came up for the ballot. His substitute proposers were as prominent as his first ones: his esteemed Uncle Harry, Sir Henry Roscoe, in place of James Caird, and the Rt. Hon. Charles Booth, the highly successful Unitarian businessman and shipowner who financed and directed the sociological survey of London’s working class, in place of Millais. Bertram’s ballot was signed by his father, by Charles Mallet, Margaret Roscoe’s husband, and by the poet and family friend Lewis Morris, among others. His election was carried by 162 to 2, an adequate number of signatures. Bertram listed his occupation as painter and etcher and his address as 2 Bolton Gardens. In light of Bertram’s later behaviour, it seems that Beatrix was initially ignorant of his marriage, and, like her parents, assumed he was farming alone in Scotland. At some point she discovered his secret, or was told, but she kept his confidence until Bertram revealed it himself in 1913. In the interim, Bertram supported his sister’s literary and artistic efforts whenever he could.45

  Even though Beatrix was travelling with her family during much of the spring of 1902, she participated in all the details of the printing and publishing. She had trouble redrawing the rabbits because she had to use a new young rabbit and both the anatomy and perspective were different from Peter’s. She worked tirelessly to get the proper word in the proper sequence, with just the right cadence and with just the right number of words on a page. Illustrations were drawn and redrawn until she was satisfied. She had opinions about the hue and intensity of colour on the blocks, the colour and texture of the paper, and of course the size and style of the print and the colour of paper for the bindings. The proofs were done by the highly regarded printer Edmund Evans, but were not ready until after the Potters had left London for their summer holiday at Eeswyke in Sawrey, where they were sent for her approval. She made more changes, moved some words, and corrected some punctuation errors. She wrote to Norman Warne, ‘I hope the little book will be a success there seems to be a great deal of trouble being taken with it.’46

  Even before publication in early October 1902, the first printing of 8,000 copies was sold out. By the year’s end there were 28,000 copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in print. In fact it proved nearly impossible to keep Peter in print. By the middle of 1903 there was a fifth edition, sporting coloured endpapers. Beatrix used the occasion to drop two illustrations, Peter going ‘lippity-lippity’, and his return to the big fir tree. A sixth printing was required within the month, and in November Potter wrote incredulously, ‘The public must be fond of rabbits! what an appalling quantity of Peter.’ A year after publication there were 56,470 copies in print and even though her royalty on each copy was reduced to about 1s. 4d., Beatrix had achieved her goal of having some money of her own.47

  At one time Beatrix credited Peter Rabbit’s success to the fact that it was a story initially written for a real little boy. But she was also quick to acknowledge that she wrote chiefly to please herself. ‘I think I write carefully because I enjoy my writing, and enjoy taking pains over it. I have always disliked writing to order; I write to please myself.’ But like many masterpieces of art, the creator often has very little sense of why the public seizes on one particular work or another.48

  Beatrix Potter had in fact created a new form of animal fable: one in which anthropomorphized animals behave always as real animals with true animal instincts and are accurately drawn by a scientific illustrator. The gap between animals and humans in Potter’s work is so narrow that we scarcely notice the transition between the two. Beatrix had been observing rabbits, both their anatomy and their behaviour, for many years. She knew how they moved, how they slept, how they used their mouths and paws, and how they cleaned themselves. She had drawn their postures of attack and submission. She knew they were both curious and easily startled, bold and cowardly in turn, but more often than not put a good face on any inadvertent mishap. Peter Rabbit’s nature is instantly recognizable to anyone who has been around a rabbit, and readily endorsed by those who have not, as true to nature, because her portrayal speaks to some universal understanding of rabbity behaviour. Peter’s bravado at entering Mr McGregor’s garden is believable both as rabbit-nature and as child-nature. His gastronomic gluttony is equally recognizable as well as vicariously amusing, building the tension which comes from knowing that pleasure is never the long-term state in nature. Peter’s fright at near-capture and his desperate efforts to find his way out of unfamiliar territory are true of any cornered animal or human. Potter’s insertion of humour and surprise at Peter’s choice of a damp wat
ering can as a hiding place, the ephemeral safety of a potting shed, and his pleas for help from other creatures either wiser than he or potentially dangerous are also choices that are true of both rabbits and humans. Peter’s utter relief at finding himself safely home, his abject admission of over-eating, but his unrepentant curiosity, have perfect integrity. In The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Potter achieves a seamless harmony between animal and human nature. It is an imaginary tale for children that leaves no doubt that such a rabbit as Peter exists in nature now, and has existed in nature forever.

  The setting of Peter Rabbit is as much a part of its success as the action of the story. Gardens had always fascinated Beatrix. Throughout her journal she comments on gardens and the plants and flowers that pleased her. She especially enjoyed drawing trees. When she began illustrating rabbits inhabiting human dwellings and going about human activities, she frequently pictured them gardening. In 1891, for example, she made a detailed pen-and-ink study of ‘The Rabbits’ Potting Shed’ when the family was at Bedwell Lodge. It was replete with pelargoniums and fuchsias in clay pots, with a collection of gardening tools — rakes, hoes, brooms, spades, forks and a large watering can. She recreated that shed in 1902 as Mr McGregor’s potting shed. His garden had been in Scotland, but in the published book it became a composite of the gardens Beatrix loved: Camfield, Lakefield, Lingholm, the garden at Tenby in South Wales, and especially her Aunt Burton’s garden at Gwaynynog. ‘The garden is very large,’ she wrote after a visit there in 1895, ‘two-thirds surrounded by a red-brick wall with many apricots, and an inner circle of old grey apple trees on wooden espaliers. It is very productive but not tidy, the prettiest kind of garden, where bright old fashioned flowers grow amongst the currant bushes.’ In Peter Rabbit all these gardens are blended into the idealized and universal garden, the first that many children are ever introduced to. It is a garden particularized by adventure and always recognizable as ‘Mr McGregor’s’ garden.49