Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  Potter’s success in her first book was as both writer and illustrator. Although the story was always of central importance, there is in Peter Rabbit a perfect marriage of word and image. The precision of her drawings of plants and animals, gardens and woods, embellishes the text and carries the story forward to the next page with a flawless continuity of time and place, fantasy and reality. The illustrations always enhance, rather than distract from or dilute the text, even when a rather sophisticated adult word is introduced. And no matter how beautiful the illustration, the landscape is real, the animals are anatomically accurate, and the plants are planted correctly. It is a triumph of fantasy rooted in fact.50

  When it was published by Warne’s in October 1902, The Tale of Peter Rabbit was sold in all the best bookshops in London, and soon in shops around the country. It first appeared in a Warne catalogue in early 1903, where it was given top billing on the list of new books and favourably compared to Uncle Remus. ‘Brer Rabbit has always been a nursery favourite and the features of Bunny physiognomy have seldom, if ever, received a more harmonious and dainty exposition.’ After this first advertisement, however, Peter Rabbit needed no further comparison.51

  7

  Ideas

  The success of the privately published Peter Rabbit, and the decision by Warne’s in December 1901 to produce a coloured edition the following year, galvanized Beatrix into a period of happy creativity. Norman Warne soon discovered that he had an author with a nearly endless supply of ideas for stories and rhymes for picture books. What was not immediately clear to the young editor, however, was how desperately Miss Potter wanted to succeed as a writer and illustrator, or the amount of time and energy she was willing to invest in making it a reality. Between the summer of 1901 and Christmas of 1902 Beatrix proposed at least three new books, in addition to suggesting a story about frogs that might also make ‘a pretty book’, a term she frequently used to indicate an idea that had captured her imagination.

  During the summer holiday at Lingholm in 1901 she had sent a long picture letter to Norah Moore about the adventures of ‘Squirrel Nutkin’ and the colony of red squirrels that abounded in Cumberland. It was an elaboration of an earlier letter written to Noel, also from Lingholm, about some American squirrels who travelled down a river on little rafts using their tails for sails. Beatrix copied Norah’s picture letter out in an exercise book before she sent it off, thinking a squirrel story might be a good idea. All that summer she sketched red squirrels scampering about the grounds at Lingholm. She painted the local landscape, seeing it as potential background, particularly the area around St Herbert’s Island which in her story became ‘Owl Island’.1

  At the same time Beatrix continued to work on another story based on a tale she had heard on a visit to Harescombe Grange, probably in 1897, about a poor tailor in the town of Gloucester. By Christmas 1901 she had finished it, copied it out in a stiff-covered exercise book and illustrated it with a dozen watercolours. She gave it to Freda Moore, who had been ill, as a Christmas present. ‘And the queerest thing about it’, Beatrix wrote to the ten-year-old girl, who was fond of fairy tales, ‘is that I heard it in Gloucestershire, and it is true! at least about the tailor, the waistcoat, and the “No more twist…” ’ Her tale was a fairy story with a ‘happy ever after’ ending. The mice were the surrogate good fairies, and Simpkin, the cat, took the role of the wicked stepmother, albeit one who repents in time. Beatrix explained to Freda she had heard the story ‘from Miss Caroline Hutton, who had it of Miss Lucy, of Gloucester, who had it of the tailor’. Once again Beatrix was adapting real life to fantasy.2

  The real tailor of Gloucester, one John Prichard, had been commissioned to make a suit for the new mayor to wear on an important ceremonial occasion. Prichard had not finished the suit when he closed his shop one weekend, only to return on Monday to find the garment finished but for one buttonhole. Pinned to the waistcoat was the explanation, ‘No more twist.’ As a shrewd businessman, Prichard used his good fortune to advertise that his waistcoats were made at night by the fairies. The story quickly became the stuff of legend about the town.3

  Beatrix asked the Huttons to point out the tailor’s shop when they drove to town and, even though it was a very hot summer day, she sat down on a doorstep nearby and began to sketch the street scene, returning the next day. Her street scenes, however, were not summer but winter ones, with snow covering the streets and shops, and the action of the story taking place on Christmas Eve. As a regular visitor to the Huttons in subsequent years, Beatrix added illustrations. She used the interiors of cottages, furniture, mantelpieces, crockery, and once inveigled the Hutton coachman’s son into posing cross-legged on the floor, busy with his sewing. Just as she had been intrigued by the implements of gardening and had made a careful inventory of the potting shed at Bedwell Lodge, where the family had stayed in 1891, Beatrix was now intrigued by the tools of the tailor’s trade. Sometime later, she created an excuse to visit a local tailor in Chelsea for a bogus button repair, so she could observe the interior of his shop, noting the scissors, thimbles and tape measures, the brass bowl of water, the snippets of fabric and thread, buttons of all sizes and shapes, and the colourful bindings and trims that litter a tailor’s shop. Some months later she returned to the same tailor’s shop and was allowed to do some further sketching of the interior.4

  The story of the tailor, or the ‘mouse book’ as Beatrix called it, was a long one and included many of her favourite rhymes, which were recited by Christmas carollers, and especially by the little birds and mice who, according to tradition, can talk in the magical hours before the dawn of Christmas Day. In a note at the end of Freda’s story Beatrix explained that some of the rhymes were Scottish versions and some came from J. O. Halliwell’s collection of verse. The Tailor of Gloucester is unique among the Potter oeuvre, for it is set not only in a particular town, but also in a specific historical period: ‘In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets — when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy…’5

  Since The Tale of Peter Rabbit would not be published until the following October, it was too soon to think of offering Frederick Warne a second book. Instead Beatrix decided once again to publish The Tailor of Gloucester herself. Her decision was based on her desire to continue publishing her own work, but also because she was fairly certain that Warne’s would insist on cutting out many of her favourite rhymes. Beatrix borrowed the manuscript back from Freda and redrew some of the pictures, even shortening the text. She took it again to Strangeways & Sons, ordering 500 copies, and had sixteen blocks made by Hentschel at a cost of £40. The format was the same small size as Peter Rabbit, this time bound in pink paper boards, with a cover drawing of three little mice busily making coats. The title page was marked December 1902.6

  Although she was working on two stories at the same time, Beatrix wrote to Norman Warne before leaving for the summer in Sawrey proposing a book of illustrated nursery rhymes in the style made famous by Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane. She had been collecting and illustrating rhymes for some time, but she was anxious to interest Norman Warne in another book. ‘It may sound odd to talk about mine & Caldecott’s at the same time,’ she wrote, ‘but I think I could at least try to do better than Peter Rabbit, and if you did not care to risk another book I could pay for it.’ Admitting to Norman that she ‘very much enjoyed doing the rabbit book’, she did not reveal how long the summer stretching ahead would be without the promise of another book. Beatrix explained only: ‘I would go on with it in any event because I want something to do… I did not mean to ask you to say you would take another book.’ A week later she wrote again from Sawrey, offering to send him some of the illustrations she had ‘on approval’, adding: ‘This is a convenient place for subjects to draw, & it seems a pity to miss the chance of going on with them.’ Working on two, even three, different story ideas at the same time appealed to her, and the idea that Warne might be interested in publishi
ng another book kept her spirits high.7

  Back in London in the autumn of 1902, Beatrix was a regular visitor to the Frederick Warne offices in Bedford Street. She came in the family carriage, which waited outside until her business was concluded and took her directly home. There was always a chaperon, either the elderly Elizabeth Harper, the cook, or some other household servant, but occasionally she was accompanied by her friend and fellow illustrator, Gertrude Woodward. Beatrix and Norman Warne were never alone in each other’s company. But in spite of these barriers, Beatrix’s letters reveal that a friendship was developing as they worked on ideas for books and grappled with the complex problems of printing. In November she had given him a version of the squirrel book. Although he liked the idea, he thought it was too long and included too many riddles. She had also proposed a story about a frog for the second time. A more familiar tone is apparent in her letter to Norman on 6 November: ‘I should like to do Mr Jeremy Fisher too some day, and I think I could make something of him, though I am afraid your remark that the story is very interesting must have been sarcastic!’8

  In December, Beatrix sent Norman a copy of the privately printed Tailor of Gloucester. She had previously explained its origin, but now had misgivings about the whole thing. ‘I thought it a very pretty story when I heard it in the country, but it has proved rather beyond my capacity for working out. All the same it is quite possible you may like it better than the squirrels; things look less silly in type.’ Wondering if she had been wise to publish it herself, she wrote two weeks later, ‘I undertook the book with very cheerful courage, but I have not the least judgment whether it is satisfactory now that it is done, I’m afraid it is going to fall rather flat here.’ Two days later, Norman replied with only moderate enthusiasm. He wanted to see how well the privately printed edition was received, but hoped in the meantime that Beatrix would work on the squirrel drawings. Her idea for a book of rhymes was laid aside — at least for the time being.9

  A month later Beatrix was busy marketing her latest privately printed tale. She sent a copy of The Tailor of Gloucester to Mrs Wicksteed, their former neighbour and the widow of the prominent Unitarian minister, explaining:

  I find that children of the right age — about 12 — like it best; the smaller ones who could learn off the short sentences of ‘Peter’ find this one too long;… I am trying to make a squirrel book at present, I have got a very pretty little model; I bought two but they weren’t a pair, and fought so frightfully that I had to get rid of the handsomer — and most savage one. The other squirrel [called ‘Twinkleberry’], is rather a nice little animal, but half of one ear has been bitten off, which spoils his appearance!

  Beatrix sent the new book to the grandchildren of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, and again told how she was busy drawing a little squirrel and would make a new book about him. ‘I have made him a house of a soap box,’ drawing a picture of it, ‘& hung it inside a big bird-cage.’ That way, Beatrix explained, she could observe the squirrels’ activities and sketch them at any hour.10

  The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin shares something of the same immediacy of story-telling as Peter Rabbit, a quality which comes from beginning life as a picture letter for a real child. Nutkin, however, is not only a story about the consequences of disobedience and rudeness, but differs from Peter Rabbit in that it is a ‘story of place’, being set quite specifically and identifiably on the shores of Derwentwater. Basing her narrative line on the story she had first told Noel about the squirrels using their tails as sails, she embellished it with the local tale about red squirrels that mysteriously appeared on St Herbert’s Island just when the nuts were ripe. She embellished it with a number of her favourite riddles and rhymes. Nutkin falls into the tradition of pourquoi tales as it explains how Nutkin’s tail came to be shorter than those of all the other squirrels. It has a sense of a folk tale because it also shares the secret of what squirrels say when they chatter, and why they sometimes throw nuts at each other and at humans.

  The published story further differs from Peter Rabbit in that Nutkin and his friends do not wear clothes, but are only minimally anthropomorphized by their human-like behaviour. The squirrels live in their accurately drawn natural habitat, but Nutkin dances on his hind legs, while the other squirrels and Old Brown, the owl who rules Owl Island, behave like real animals. Potter comes closest in this book to the kind of natural history writing that was popular at the turn of the century, where the story is a vehicle for conveying knowledge to young readers about wildlife and animal behaviour. Viewed in this way, Nutkin succeeds. But Nutkin himself is not as sympathetic a character as Peter for he is unapologetically rude to Old Brown, and he is lucky to escape with just a shorter tail. Although Norman tried to minimize the number of riddles, the compromise, unlike that achieved in the Tailor, is less satisfactory. While the narrative is amusing, the quality of the writing and the narrative pace are diminished by so many interruptions.11

  Perhaps the most enchanting part of Nutkin is in the beautifully detailed drawing of a real island that can still be identified by reference to these backgrounds. In addition to making sketches from both sides of the island, the shore at Lingholm, and even the view from the fells on the opposite side of the lake, Potter took photographs of many of the same views. There are several black-and-white photographs of Old Brown’s tree, which stood for many years after on St Herbert’s Island. Its gnarly holes, large, sturdy, almost menacing roots and branches, and rough textured bark are clearly visible in her photographs, as well as the ferns and detritus of the forest floor. Her photographs and paintings are nearly perfect mirrors of one another.12

  Beatrix understood that real nature has a hard edge and Nutkin is a violent story. She does not shy away from depicting it, knowing that it is faithful to life, and that ruthlessness and violence are always popular with children. There is a surreal element in this story as well as the first evidence of Potter’s sense of the sardonic; an attribute that is rarely included in children’s books, or rarely done well, and which links her to Jane Austen whose understated humour she admired.13

  In the end, Warne decided to publish both The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester in 1903, although there was a great deal of discussion about how much the latter had to be shortened. ‘I am very glad I came again to Bedford St,’ Beatrix wrote to Norman before departing for Wales in February; ‘it seemed a pity to have different opinions about it, after having agreed so pleasantly about the rabbit book.’ From Denbigh, where she was staying with the Burtons at Gwaynynog, she wrote happily, ‘I am quite satisfied with the agreements; my cotton-spinning uncle thinks the per-centage very good; & I think the same.’14

  Beatrix finished the drawings for Nutkin first, remembering just in the nick of time to add the dedication, ‘A Story for Norah’. She did not settle into making the necessary revisions for The Tailor of Gloucester until late May after she returned to Gloucester for more sketching. But it was at Melford Hall, in Suffolk, the grand home of her cousin Ethel, Lady Hyde Parker, that she found the perfect model for the old-fashioned fireplace in the tailor’s shop. When she was in London, her writing took her increasingly away from Bolton Gardens. She went to the Warne office in the Strand several times a week to review blocks and designs. Some days she was at the London Zoological Gardens sketching owls, trying to improve upon her drawing of Old Brown. She frequently visited the costume department of the South Kensington Museum refining the illustrations for the Tailor. In March, Beatrix made the happy discovery that she could ask the curator to display some of the eighteenth-century costumes in the collection in an empty office where the light was better. ‘I have been looking at them for a long time in an inconvenient dark corner of the goldsmith’s court, but had no idea they could be taken out of the case.’ Her status as the author of Peter Rabbit was such that an assistant was subtly assigned to see that Miss Potter had whatever she needed from the collection. The first things she asked for were the beautifully embroidered d
resses, coats and vests that were later to become the hallmark of The Tailor of Gloucester.15

  There was other good news. Warne’s had decided that the two books should have a de-luxe edition bound in a more elaborate fabric. Beatrix immediately sought out fabric samples from E. Potter & Company, her grandfather’s calico printing company in Dinting Vale, which could print in any desired shade of colour, or cloth. After looking at a great many samples which were unsuitable for one reason or another, she chose a flower pattern art fabric with scattered pansies. She later described these two books as ‘bound in a flowered lavender chintz, very pretty’, and took pleasure in this serendipitous connection to her grandfather’s old firm.

  Endpapers in full colour were also introduced in both these books. Beatrix had been unenthusiastic about the idea, and said so bluntly, but she obediently designed a freshly coloured delicate chain that linked the characters from each book around the edges of the page; at least one character would hold the appropriate book with its title. In time new characters were introduced to endpapers as each book was published. Warne’s were delighted with Beatrix’s design and with the marketing potential the endpapers offered, as new characters could be introduced before the next book was published, hinting at the title to come.16

  But there were unexpected setbacks: colours were wrong — too green or too red — and more seriously, a mistake by Hentschel’s in making the blocks for the Tailor. Ignoring Beatrix’s wishes, they removed a critical black line around the vignetted plates. Beatrix had relied on the line, especially in the illustrations of the town in winter, to make the snow in the foreground stand out as white. After her protest, a new block of the gateway was made and the line restored around the others. Although Beatrix was sad about having so many of her favourite rhymes and verses cut, she trusted Norman’s judgement. She did not, however, understand why he objected to her illustration of the rats carousing at a Christmas Eve party under the mayor’s shop. Years later she wrote, ‘one of them [was] drinking out of a black bottle. For the life of me, I could not see why Mr Warne insisted on cutting it out?’17