Growing up in the 1800s in a wealthy, upper class English family, Helen Beatrix Potter led a cocooned and isolated childhood in a large, sprawling home; she was a lonely child who was also intrigued by the world around her, particularly in the animals and flowers she could see outside her window. She traveled with her family during school holidays (although she was home schooled by a private governess) and also had a number of pets. Not surprisingly, she amused herself by creating a number of imaginary friends in the animals she saw in the countryside; these were most likely the prototype characters for the books she wrote as an adult; there were twenty-three books in all, known collectively as The Tales of Beatrix Potter.
There were precious few opportunities for well-to-do women like Potter at the time;however, she was a talented naturalist and artist and became very well-respected as a watercolor painter, especially for her paintings of fungus, which led to her also becoming a widely respected mycologist. Potter did not have any contacts in the publishing world and so her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was self-published. The book was so successful that she became contracted to the publisher Warne and Co, and went on to write another twenty-two books in the series.
The appeal of Potter's characters is that they are animals that one might see on a walk outside any day of the week, and so children were able to see a squirrel run up a tree nearby and imagine it to be Squirrel Nutkin, or to see a rather fat duck waddling to the stream and assume she might be distantly related to Jemima Puddleduck. Potter also wrote tales that revolved around domestic animals, for example, The Tale of Tom Kitten.
In later years, Potter worked alongside Warne and Co to develop a line of merchandise to accompany her Tales, and she also moved to a farm in the Lake District, in the north of England, where she raised prize winning sheep, and went on to become an avid conservationist. After her death she bequeathed her estate to the National Trust.
The Tales of Beatrix Potter have been turned into television, film, and even a ballet performed by the Royal Ballet, directed by legendary choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, and performed at the Royal Opera House.
