The Writer, The Rabbit, and the Land That They Loved

July 1, 2024

Literature

Nesha Ruther

Writer at Bond & Grace

Peter Rabbit is nothing less than a childhood staple. With its simple charm and cozy atmosphere, generations of young readers have fallen in love with this world and the precocious animals that populate it. Less widely known, however, is the world of Peter’s incredible author and illustrator, Beatrix Potter.

Beatrix was born in London in 1866 to affluent parents. Her family had made their money as cotton merchants and were quite traditional, leading to a distant relationship with Beatrix and her younger brother Bertram.

This atmosphere led Beatrix to draw inward. On the outside, she was a proper Victorian girl, but she maintained a rich and inquisitive inner life. She diaried regularly from the time she was fourteen, writing in a secret code she invented and in tiny handwriting to keep out unwelcome eyes.

Despite living most of her life in London, Beatrix longed for the countryside. Her family spent the summers vacationing in the Lake District, which would have an indelible impact on Beatrix. In her own words, “My brother and I were born in London because my father was a lawyer there, but our interests and our joy was in the North country.”

From a young age, she loved to draw, referring to the impulse as “the irresistible desire to copy any beautiful object which strikes the eye.”

One beautiful thing she particularly loved to draw was animals. Perhaps to compensate for living in London, Beatrix and Bertram were allowed many pets, and not just typical pets either.

Their animals ranged from rabbits to salamanders to bats and everything in between. They loved these animals dearly but were also fascinated by them. When their pets died, the siblings stuffed them or boiled the bones so they could continue to study their bodies. “If he cannot be kept alive, you had better kill him and stuff him as well you can,” Bertram wrote to Beatrix from boarding school, upon hearing his pet bat had fallen ill.

It was Beatrix’s beloved rabbit, Peter Piper, who would be immortalized in literature as Peter Rabbit.

As an adult, Beatrix wrote about Peter Rabbit in letters to the Moore children, whose mother was her former governess.

Eventually, Mrs. Moore suggested Beatrix write a book. She self-published Peter Rabbit in 1901 after being rejected by multiple publishers. While they initially approved of her book, they disagreed on the price, as Beatrix insisted it be kept low.

A year later in 1902, it was picked up by Frederick Warne & Co. who printed 800 copies of Peter Rabbit. The book immediately sold out and became a sensation.

Beatrix accredited this success to her friends the Moore children, saying “I often think that was the secret of the success of Peter Rabbit. It was written to a child–not made to order.”

While Beatrix was becoming a global phenomenon, she was also falling in love with her editor Norman Wayne.

At 39 years old, Beatrix had spent her life living at home in London and caring for her parents, who were unhappy at the prospect of her leaving. Much to their chagrin, Beatrix and Norman got engaged, however, he tragically died a month later of lymphatic leukemia. Beatrix was devastated but her parents were quietly pleased, surely now she would never leave them.

But Beatrix had seen the potential to live a different kind of life and was determined to do so. Using the proceeds from her books, and going against her parents' wishes, she left London and bought a large parcel of land in her beloved Lake District. She called the two-story house and the surrounding land Hill Top Farm.

This was an incredible show of independence from Beatrix, not only by going against her parents but as a woman living alone. Whatever others thought, it was at Hill Top that she was happiest and became the most genuine version of herself. “It is here I go to be quiet and still with myself,” she wrote of Hill Top, with its view of the sprawling green hills, stone walls, and whitewashed cottages. “This is me, the deepest me, the part one has to be alone with.”

Beatrix loved living in the countryside and became an avid farmer and conservationist. She even won prizes for breeding Herdwick Sheep.

She continued to write and publish, releasing over a dozen more books including The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

Eventually, she married local lawyer William Heelis, and while she did move in with him, she kept Hill Top as her own private sanctuary.

Beatrix passed away in 1943 at the age of 77. If the legacy of Peter Rabbit and the many other beloved characters was not enough, she donated the 4,000 acres of land surrounding Hill Top to the National Trust, their largest donation in the area.

Today, Beatrix’s beloved Lake District includes a Beatrix Potter museum and theme park for families, and Hill Top Farm is open to the public. Every year, thousands of people make the pilgrimage to Beatrix's beloved home and the inspiration for her cherished characters.

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For More Information on Beatrix Potter…

“Beatrix Potter, The Flopsy Bunnies and the British Museum,” The British Museum.

Russell, Anna, “The Secret Life of Beatrix Potter,” The New York Times, March 12, 2022.

“The Life of Beatrix Potter,” The World of Beatrix Potter Bowness-on-Windermere.‍