Potter, Beatrix

Potter, Beatrix, 1866–1943, English author and illustrator. She published her first animal stories, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) and The Tailor of Gloucester (1903), at her own expense before she found a publisher, Frederick Warne & Company. Over a period of 30 years, Warne published 23 of her books. Potter's stories, although fantasy, depict animals in an intelligent, unsentimental, and humorous manner. The books are enhanced by her delicate drawings and watercolor paintings. Now considered classics, Potter's stories are still popular and have been translated into several languages.

Bibliography

See biography by M. Lane (rev. ed. 1968); L. Linder, A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter (1971).

---

Potter, (Helen) Beatrix

Beatrix Potter, 1913

(credit: Pictorial Parade/London Daily Express, reproduced by permission of Frederick Warne & Co.)

(born July 28, 1866, South Kensington, Middlesex, Eng.—died Dec. 22, 1943, Sawrey, Lancashire) English author and illustrator of children's books. In her childhood Potter spent holidays in Scotland and the English Lake District, which inspired her love of animals and stimulated her imaginative and technically superb watercolour drawings. The illustrated animal stories she sent to a sick child when she was 27 were published as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), which became one of the best-selling children's books of all time. More than 20 sequels followed, featuring such original characters as Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.