Beat the bestsellers
The pioneer of modern children’s picture book writing, Beatrix Potter, was born 150 years ago. Underpinning her work was a seamless harmony between animal and human nature, says Tony Rossiter
The techniques and styles of ...BEATRIX POTTER
‘You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put into a pie by Mrs McGregor.’
But Peter is a naughty rabbit who does not do as he is told, and he does not follow Mrs Rabbit’s instructions. His behaviour mirrors that of a naughty child. No wonder The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) was such a success. Beatrix Potter went on to write and illustrate a further 23 bestselling books of animal tales.
ARTIST AND NATURALIST
From an early age Beatrix was fascinated by natural history, science and art. Born in 1866 into a well-to-do, upper-middle class Victorian household, she was brought up by nannies and governesses; but on the third floor of the house in Bolton Gardens, Kensington, she and her brother were allowed to keep a menagerie which included, at various times, rabbits, a green frog, lizards, newts, bats, snails, guinea pigs, canary, budgerigar, duck, tortoise and hedgehog. She observed these animals closely and drew them endlessly.
Her interest in natural history was also stimulated by long holidays spent at Dalguise House, Dunkeld, the family’s second home in Perthshire, and at Camfield Place, her grandparents’ home in Hertfordshire. From an early age she observed what was around her and loved to draw and paint. Her earliest sketchbook, ‘Dalguise 1875’, includes a careful watercolour study of caterpillars, as well as scenes depicting what she observed around her: a farmer with a cow, a bridge over the river, the house at the foot of the mountain. Another sketchbook of the same period shows rabbits on ice-skates, wearing jackets, hats and scarves. By 1880 she was drawing serious, anatomically perfect, studies of rabbits.