Once upon a time there
were four little Rabbits,
and their names were--
Flopsy,
Mopsy,
Cotton-tail,
and Peter.
With this introduction to Mrs. Rabbit’s brood of bunnies, the inestimable wealth of the Beatrix Potter estate commenced. It was from this prosaic beginning that one of the most successful book franchises of all time began. Potter’s Tales have withstood the test of time and taste, its simple characters managing to withstand the arrival of animation, television and irony. The strange association of eggs with bunnies every Easter certainly did not hurt things, either.
The squirrels filled their little sacks with nuts. But Nutkin sat upon a big flat rock, and played ninepins with a crab apple and green fir-cones.
While Peter is the most famous of Potter’s characters, he can be a little soft for some. The year following the appearance of Peter, Potter introduced a new character. Squirrel Nutkin is described as “impertinent” but that’s just fancy Brit talk. Nutkin is edgy. A member of that most industrious of woodland creatures—squirrels—Nutkin play game than gather nuts and sing sassy songs about Old Brown the owl while he’s at it.
Then those mice set to work to do all the mischief they could—especially Tom Thumb! He took Jane's clothes out of the chest of drawers in her bedroom, and he threw them out of the top-floor window.
The two titular mice wreak havoc inside a dollhouse after learning that nothing is real. Everything looks real; not just real, but perfect. It is all for show, however. It is a world that isn’t a world and, more than that, it is a mockery of those who have nothing. Their rampage is a manifestation of the anger toward the British class system and aristocracy of European society.
"I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding."
If not the most famous line from the works of Potter, this is certainly one of the most beloved. Samuel Whiskers is not, as one might think, a cat, but rather a rat. He and his wife Anna Maria are rats in more than just the animalistic sense; they are low-life criminals who seek to turn Tom Kitten into pudding. The plans are thwarted, but what lingers long afterward is the language of Sam and Anna. It is elevated to a proper sort of formality at odds with their lowly status and one cannot help but think of all the many British super-villains who are characterized by this quirk of language standing in stark juxtaposition to their common venality.
