Source:
Above: Beatrix Potter.
Above: Noel Moore.
Helen Beatrix Potter (born July 28, 1866, died December 22, 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist; she was and is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Born into an upper-middle-class household, Beatrix was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets and spent holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developing a love of landscape, flora and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted.
Beatrix's study and watercolours of fungi led to her being widely respected in the field of mycology. In her thirties, she self-published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Following this, Beatrix began writing and illustrating children's books full-time.
Beatrix wrote thirty books, the best-known being her twenty-three children's tales. With the proceeds from the books and a legacy from an aunt, Beatrix bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in 1905; this is a village in the Lake District in Cumbria. Over the following decades, she purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In 1913, at the age of 47, she married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor from Hawkshead. Beatrix was also a prize-winning breeder of Herdwick sheep and a prosperous farmer keenly interested in land preservation. She continued to write and illustrate, and to design spin-off merchandise based on her children's books for British publisher Warne until the duties of land management and her diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue.
Beatrix died of pneumonia and heart disease on December 22, 1943 at her home in Near Sawrey at the age of 77, leaving almost all her property to the National Trust. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now constitutes the Lake District National Park. Her books continue to sell throughout the world in many languages, with her stories being retold in songs, films, ballet and animated cartoons, and her life depicted in two films and a television series.
This is Beatrix's oldest known picture letter, written to Noel Moore when he was four years old. It describes a holiday trip to a seaside resort in language easily understandable at his age with illustrations that might pique his interest and retain his attention. Note the passage in square brackets cautioning his mother about seashells she proposed to give him and his younger brother.
The letter:
My dear Noel,
Thank you for your very interesting letter, which you sent me a long time ago.
I have come a very long way in a puff-puff to a place in Cornwall, where it is very hot, and there are palm trees in the gardens & camellias and rho[de]dendrons in flower which are very pretty. We are living in a big house close to the sea, we go on the harbour in a steam boat and see ever so many big ships.
Yesterday we went across the water to a pretty little village where the fishermen live. I saw them catching crabs in a basket cage which they let down into the sea with some meat in it & then the crabs go in to eat the meat & cannot get out.
I shall be quite sorry to come away from this nice place but we have been here 10 days. Before we go home we are going for two days to Plymouth to see some bigger ships still. I shall come to see you and tell your Mamma all about it when I get home. I have got a lot of shells for you & Eric, [I suppose they would not swallow them]
This is a pussy I saw looking for fish.
These are two little dogs that live in the hotel, & two tame seagulls & a great many cocks & hens in the garden.
I am going today to a place called the Lizard so I have no time to draw any more pictures.
& I remain yours affectionately
Beatrix Potter
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