A Hollywood film and a comprehensive new biography celebrate the spirited nature of the businesswoman and environmentalist who created Peter Rabbit

Force of nature

Beatrix Potter - Force of nature | Culture | The Economist

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CHILDREN love Peter Rabbit for his epic naughtiness and lucky escapes, adults for the delicacy with which he is drawn. But one thing that few readers will know about is the vision and determination of his Victorian creator, Beatrix Potter. 

Potter grew up, not in the countryside—the scene for so many of her stories about rabbits and squirrels, ducks and frogs—but in London. Her family made their money building the biggest calico printing company in the world, but quickly left their roots behind. As first-generation immigrants to the capital, their social circle was restricted, certainly more so than it would have been if they had remained among their Unitarian relatives in Manchester. And Potter's chances of finding a husband were further reduced by her mother's snobbish insistence that she not marry into “trade”. Only a suitor with inherited land, and preferably also a title, would do.

Like many Victorian parents, the Potters did not believe in female education either, despite young Beatrix's obvious intelligence. With the aid of private tutors, she became fluent in French and German, showed an early talent for drawing which was encouraged by a family friend, Sir John Everett Millais, and eagerly pursued the passion of the day, natural history. She was a frequent visitor to the Natural History Museum near the family home in South Kensington, and devoted much of her time to drawing animals from life, principally her pets, whose antics she liked to turn into illustrated letters to the children of her nanny.

It was two of these, written within the same week in September 1893, that eventually became “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher”. “I don't know what to write to you,” she told her young pen pal, Noel Moore, whom she knew was sick in bed and needed cheering up, “so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were—Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.”

The quality of her work is still striking more than a century later. Potter was also possessed of an unusual vision. Contrary to the fashion of the day, she insisted that her books be small and cheap. With her editor, Norman Warne, she paid particular attention to matching the words to the drawings, and ensuring that each detail was as vivid and as well drawn as could be. She was actively involved in the merchandising of her characters—from an early stage there were wallpapers, china tea sets, figurines, a Jemima Puddle-Duck doll and wooden-jointed rabbits. This made her rich and helped create the first of the great children's brands that flourish today, foreshadowing the global profile of Babar, Walt Disney and Harry Potter.

Any satisfaction Potter's parents might have felt at their daughter's achievements was diminished by constant nagging that she preferred her work to caring for them. In an age when filial duty was a point of pride, especially for daughters, this was especially hurtful. Tensions erupted when, at the age of 39, she and Warne became secretly engaged. The two exchanged rings, but were not permitted to make any public announcement, which helped Potter's parents deny the engagement altogether when, just a month after the betrothal, Norman Warne suddenly died of undiagnosed leukaemia.

Potter assuaged her grief by buying a farm—a courageous assertion of personal freedom and emotional independence. The land lay by a lake in the Lake District (pictured above), an area in the north-west of England made famous by the Romantic poets in the early 19th century, and a place where she and her parents had often holidayed. From 1905 on, she divided her life between writing her little books and her country pursuits as a landowner, sheep breeder and environmentalist. 

Although she grew increasingly frustrated with the chaotic manner in which Warne's elder brother ran the family firm, her characteristic grit and loyalty showed through when she agreed to produce two books in quick succession after Harold Warne was imprisoned for fraud and the company nearly went under.

Potter's country pursuits took an increasing amount of her attention. When she discovered that the man who had sold her her first farm had charged her twice what he had paid for it just seven weeks earlier, she engaged the services of a local solicitor, William Heelis, to ensure she was never fleeced again. The two were often seen walking the boundaries of prospective properties, peering into farm buildings and inspecting the policies. After seven years, and again in the face of bitter parental disapproval, Potter felt emboldened enough to accept his proposal of marriage. She was 46.

For 30 years more, Potter wrote her books and used her growing wealth to buy land in the Lake District. Her efforts to build up a flock of pedigree Herdwick sheep led her to become a strong supporter of Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, a priest and activist who was instrumental in launching the movement to preserve the natural beauty of the lakes. At her death, Potter bequeathed all her holdings—14 farms and 4,000 acres of land—to the National Trust, then a highly original legal proposition, also championed by Rawnsley, to preserve the nation's heritage through public ownership. She directed in her will that her ashes should be scattered in a secret place among the hills.

Diligent and humorous, Linda Lear is a good match for her subject, and she never makes the mistake that academics so often make of substituting prurience and a convoluted political correctness for insight and a clear writing style. Single-minded, ironic, resourceful and determined, Potter was far more than just a writer of small children's books. A more modest, intelligent and public-spirited use of wealth would be hard to imagine.

Beatrix Potter

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Force of nature

A Hollywood film and a comprehensive new biography celebrate the spirited nature of the businesswoman and environmentalist who created Peter Rabbit

Culture January 6th 2007

From the January 6th 2007 edition

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