The Real Beatrix Potter by Nadia Cohen

Author:Nadia Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LITERARY CRITICISM / Women Authors
Publisher: White Owl
Published: 2020-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

While the excitement surrounding her political campaigning and the frenzy of two General Elections being held in the same year had made Beatrix’s time in London far more interesting than any of her previous visits, she always yearned to return to Hill Top. Her publishers at Warnes had been glad to have their reclusive author around so much, since it made contacting her so much faster while they tackled the thorny problems surrounding copyright and issues with translating her books into more and more languages, but Beatrix could not wait to escape the city again.

In a bid to keep her in London, Warnes urged Beatrix to spend time responding to the sacks of fan mail they received at the office on her behalf. Beatrix was inundated with requests almost daily from children, urging her to name characters after their pets, and many of the handwritten replies she sent have survived to this day.

She may have wanted to take a step back from publishing, but her young readers simply would not allow it. Beatrix was receiving more and more letters from ‘her little friends’ all around the world with children offering praise, suggestions for new books and bombarding her with hundreds of detailed questions about the characters and plots.

In a letter to a young girl named Phyllis, Beatrix told her about the ‘heaps of letters’ she had received from other young readers pleading for all manner of pets to be mentioned in her future books, one child even asked her to consider featuring a crocodile. Phyllis had apparently asked Beatrix to please use her rabbit Fluffy in a story. Despite Beatrix’s bulging post bag, she found the time to pen a charming four-page reply that come to light at an auction in 2012.

She gently let Phyllis down by telling her: ‘I feel quite sad to disappoint you – I have begun another book about the fox! If I can do another book that Fluffy can come into – I promise to.’

It is thought the fox in question was Mr Tod, who featured in her 1912 book The Tale of Mr Tod. Beatrix added:

You don’t know what heaps of letters I get from all over the world, and so many of them want a book about some special animal.

There was a letter lately from a child in Wales who wants a book about a crocodile called Amelia! That I cannot stand!

Then there is a small boy in Ireland who wants to know if Jeremy Fisher ever got married, and two want moles, & another wants a donkey named Salome, & another wants a horse book, and another wants hens, & another wants elephants – poor Miss Potter!

Fluffy is a very reasonable request by comparison.

Beatrix also admitted that she had no choice but to refuse young Phyllis’ request to draw a cat or a dog for her because, she insisted, she was far better at sketching mice and rabbits. But Beatrix did soften the blow by revealing further details about Peter Rabbit,

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