A new biography of the children's author and artist, Beatrix Potter.
Helen Beatrix Potter was born in a wealthy family in the Britain in 1866. Growing up, she was avidly interested in nature and spent many hours studying and drawing plants, animals, mushrooms, and fossils. She was especially fond of rural England and hated every minute she had to spend in London with her parents. Her parents wanted Beatrix to marry well and become a part of high society. But Beatrix was never interested in that. Her heart belonged to the country life, farming, gardening, raising sheep and livestock; these are the things she valued. Society and city life never held any attraction for her. But as the dutiful daughter of Victorian era parents, her choices were really limited. In a different time, she might has followed her interests into a career as a scientist, but instead she spent most of her time in attendance on her parents.
She used to amuse herself & her friends and children friends with little tales and drawings she wrote in letters. Eventually she worked one of these tales into a little book for kids and tried to find a publisher. The book was The Tale of Peter Rabbit, published in 1902. The book did well and Potter was on her way to financial independence with the subsequent publishing of many more of her little tales.
With the royalties pouring in, Beatrix started to take her first steps away from the life she hated in London, tied to her parents. She bought herself a sheep farm, Hill Top Farm, in England's beautiful lake district. This was the start of her lifelong quest to preserve and protect not only a landscape but a way of life, sheep farming on the fells of the lake district.
Beatrix married late in life at age 47 to William Heelis, a solicitor who lived in the Lake District. They never had children. Throughout their life together, she and William continued to buy property in the district, setting aside quaint old cottages and farms to protect them from the development that was just starting to affect the beautiful landscape of the Lake District. Many farms were being sold and broken up into lots for housing and Beatrix and William wanted to protect a way of life and a landscape that was in danger of disappearing.
Beatrix died in 1943 and William followed her a year and a half latter. Their property, comprising about 4000 acres, went to the National Trust and is now encompassed within Lake District National Park.
In the latter years of her life, Beatrix became less interested in writing and drawing and totally immersed in being the owner and manager of her many acres. She confessed she was puzzled by the abiding popularity of Peter Rabbit and often complained she was sick of drawing and writing about rabbits. But Peter Rabbit was her passport to freedom and independence and the story has become one of the best known children's' stories ever written.
If you were ever a fan of Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle or any of the many animal characters Beatrix invented, then you might be interested in this illuminating biography of the famous artist and author, Beatrix Potter.
Review from Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-36934-7.
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