Happy Birthday Beatrix Potter - July 28, 1866
Beatrix and Spot
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Beatrix Potter, the twentieth
century's most beloved children's writer and illustrator, created books that will
forever conjure nature for millions. Yet though she is a household name around the
world, her personal life and her other significant achievements remain largely unknown.
This remarkable new biography is an exploration of the life and times of an extraordinary
woman.
Beatrix and William Gaskell
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Potter's was, Linda Lear reveals, a life inspired and enriched by nature. Even as
a child and a young woman, growing up in a wealthy, conventional London family,
her imagination and artistic talent were fed by visits to the countryside. She found
personal and financial freedom through nature, first as an artist and scientific
illustrator, and then as the creator of the overnight bestseller
Peter Rabbit
which also revealed her to a far-sighted marketer and merchandiser. It was in the
"little books" that led Beatrix to her first great love: her editor and publisher
Norman Warne, who died tragically just a month after he proposed to her.
Beatrix and William Heelis
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But Beatrix Potter was one of those rare individuals who is given a second chance
at happiness. Her purchase of Hill Top Farm in the Lake District just after Warne's
death led to her reinvention as a successful landowner and country farmer, and eventually
to a happy marriage to William Heelis. She became a conservationist in order to
preserve the landscape that had inspired her art, and, through the lands she bequeathed
to the National Trust on her death, she saved whole areas of the Lake District for
posterity.
At a time when plunder was more popular than preservation, she had brought nature
back into the imagination. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a strong,
humorous, and independent woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left
an indelible imprint on the countryside.
