Through Beatrix Potter’s letters we learn a lot about her life, her attitude to business, her interests and her relationships. Famously The Tale of Peter Rabbit began as a picture letter which she wrote to a child, and indeed a number of the other Tales also began life as picture letters to those close to her.
Beatrix also had lengthy correspondence with her publisher and then fiancé Norman Warne. Through these we can watch the development of her as a published author from the moment that the publishers Frederick Warne (her publishers to this day) decided to take on her very first Tale.
A selection of extracts from letters to F. Warne & Co are below –
![Feb 3rd, 1905 – ‘I wonder if you will care for either of these [the draft texts of Jeremy Fisher and The Pie and the Patty Pan]…There is plenty of work to go on with though I don’t intend to finish the hedgehog book straight off, as I think I may have a chance of drawing a child conveniently later in the spring…I am afraid you don’t like frogs but it would make pretty pictures with water-forget-me-nots, lilies etc. I should like to do both & I think I could, if the longer one were part black & white which takes very little time to process. I don’t know what to think about the second; it seems rather funny, but very greedy!’](images/letters/3.jpg)
