Posted on 07/28/2016 7:51:39 AM PDT by Borges
Beatrix Potter was a writer of strong contradictions. A keen business woman, the first author to license fictional characters to a range of toys and household objects still on sale today, she allowed herself to be short-changed over her royalties for years. She was an expert in natural history, boiling down animal corpses to extract their skeletons so she could understand their anatomy well enough to draw them, yet she wrote stories in which rabbits wear blue jackets and hedgehogs pinafores. A huge success, she turned her back on her literary achievements in middle age to pursue a career as a sheep-breeder.
She had a lonely home-bound childhood with parents intent on keeping her on as their companion, but she still managed to get engaged twice despite their disapproval. She lost her first fiance, Norman Warne, through his premature death and married her second, William Heelis, at 47. By then she had become as tough as the old boots she wore to sheep fairs or while working in her Lake District garden. Often seen in her oldest clothes, her resemblance to Mr McGregor, the distinctly unsmart gardener in The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was sometimes remarked on locally.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Always loved her work.
Happy Birthday from Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail!
I always loved Peter Rabbit and the other characters. I had a Peter Rabbit theme in the bedroom when my oldest was born.
You might like this book. 2015 “The Shepherd’s Life - Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Life” James Rebanks.
This is a non-fiction account by a man who quit his city job and returned to farming sheep in England’s Lake District about 15 years ago. Beatrix Potter’s fortunes allowed her to lobby for and win approval to have land set aside just for sheep farming in the Lake District way back when to ensure that the skill of the solitary farmer is maintained in Engand and not lost to “progress” in this modern world.
Rebanks’ account was just fascinating to me (a non-farmer) as he takes the reader through season by season of sheep raising. A wonderful book full of love and history.
If you have kids or grandkids, I highly recommend this collection of Beatrix Potter DVDs put out by the BBC. Very entertaining, calm, high production value. The kids loved these and almost wore them out. We passed them on to my sister in law, whose kids also love them (although we kept “The Tailor of Gloucestershire” for ourselves, to watch at Christmas). When grandkids eventually come along, we’ll have to get another full set.
Years ago, English television had a mini-series on her starring Penelope Wilton. Wonderful artist and writer. It seems she was influenced by Leonardo in her study of anatomy.
I may pick up that book! An urbanite, I do love the country and love tales of farmlife.
I recommend to anyone who loves English country life to try the classic book “Lark Rise to Candleford.”
Not enough transgendered, non-binary, asexual, poly-queer rabbits.
Me too.
Too bad this completely ignores her scientific illustration (still used in fungal ID) and her role in identifying the symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae.
Miss Potter (DVD) with Rene Zellweger was pretty good on Potter’s life and publishing problems (since she was a “woman” in male publishing world).
Your “Lark Rise...” suggestion is at our library in both DVD and book form - will check them out - thanks.
Thanks for that book recommendation!
I hate autocorrect. It deleted Nutkin..Squirrel Nutkin.
Thanks for the fungi! (haven’t said that since I was 20 yrs old at a Grateful Dead show) :-)
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