About the Artwork

This beautiful range of Official Collector’s Edition Prints has been created to mark the 120th anniversary The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a story that has delighted countless generations of children. Each print has been meticulously created from newly commissioned scans of Beatrix Potter's original watercolour illustrations which are preserved in the archive of her publisher Frederick Warne and Co. Each print is presented with the original quotation from Warne’s first 1902 edition.

The story of naughty Peter Rabbit in Mr. McGregor’s garden first appeared in a picture letter Beatrix Potter wrote to Noel Moore, the young son of her former governess, in 1893. Encouraged by her success in having some greeting card designs published, Beatrix remembered the letter seven years later, and expanded it into a little picture book, with black-and-white illustrations. It was rejected by several publishers, so Beatrix had it printed herself, to give to family and friends. About this time, Frederick Warne agreed to publish the tale if the author would supply coloured pictures, and the book finally appeared in 1902, priced at one shilling (5p). It was an instant success and has remained so ever since.

About the Artist

Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866 and grew up living the conventionally sheltered life of a Victorian girl in a well-to-do household. She was educated at home by a governess with her brother Bertram.  Her constant companions were the pet animal she kept which she enjoyed studying and sketching.  On summer holidays she delighted in exploring the countryside and learning about plants and animals from her own observations. Beatrix Potter devoted most of her energy to the study of natural history – archaeology, geology, entomology and, especially, mycology. Fungi appealed to Potter’s imagination, both for their evanescent habits and for their coloration. Encouraged by Charles McIntosh, a revered Scottish naturalist, to make her fungi drawings more technically accurate, Potter not only produced beautiful watercolours, but also became an adept scientific illustrator. By 1896 Beatrix Potter had developed her own theory of how fungi spores reproduced and wrote a paper, ‘On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae‘. This was presented to a meeting of the Linnean Society on 1 April 1897 by one of the mycologists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, since women could not attend Society meetings. Her paper has since been lost. Beatrix Potter’s career as a children’s illustrator and storyteller began when The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published by Frederick Warne and Co. in 1902.  The public loved it as soon as it appeared and Beatrix went on to produce on average two books a year until 1910.