Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was an English writer and illustrator, as well as a natural scientist & conservationist. Born in 1866 in London, she went on to live at Hill Top Farm in the Lake District, where she helped preserve the natural landscape that helped inspire her stories, and bred prize-winning Herwick sheep.

Her love of animals is showcased in her stories of Peter Rabbit & his friends, many of whom appear in the Music box card and Advent calendar products of our latest collaboration. Alongside Peter Rabbit, old favourites like Benjamin Bunny, Squirrel Nutkin and Mrs Tiddlywinks can all be spotted as they prepare for Christmas!

The Story of Peter Rabbit was inspired by a pet rabbit Beatrix Potter had as a child named Peter Piper. It originally featured in a letter to a young Noel Moore in 1893, who was the son of her old Governess, Annie. At Annie’s suggestion to publish the letter, Beatrix went on to improve the story, and it was the first of her 30 books to be published, in 1902, by Frederick Warne & Co.

To date, it has been translated into 36 languages, and with 45 million copies sold it is one of the best-selling and best-loved books in history.