That same year, Potter bought a farm near the village of Sawrey in the English Lake District, home to some of her fondest childhood memories. She visited the property, which she named "Hill Top, " as often as she could given the fact that she still lived with her parents and was subject to their control.
Gradually, she was able to spend more and more time there. As a result, the years from until marked an especially productive phase of Potter's career. These charming animal stories were typically written in an unpretentious and often witty style.
Sometimes they would take the reader to the edge of something a bit scary or dark, but Potter would always retreat to safety and a happy ending. In addition to writing and illustrating her books, Potter directed their production and design.
She insisted that they be kept small to fit comfortably into a child's hands and that only a few words appear on each page. She also liked to challenge her readers now and then with a surprisingly sophisticated vocabulary in the belief that children delighted in learning new words.
Potter took an active interest in the merchandising possibilities of her books as well, pointing out to her publisher the need to copyright her characters and suggesting games and other items that could be based on them. During the course of business transactions related to her farm, Potter met a lawyer named William Heelis, whom she married in Able at last to leave her parents' house, she moved with her new husband to Hill Top, where they lived for several years before buying a large sheep farm in Potter's writing career basically ended when she married Heelis and began devoting her time to being a wife and a farmer.
As she had noted years before in her journal entry for June 12, , "I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman's life. By Potter had given up writing entirely. She was not interested in fame and regarded people who praised her work with suspicion. According to Brian Alderson in his Times Educational Supplement review of the book Beatrix Potter's Letters, she told journalist John Stone in , "I hate publicity, and I have contrived to survive to be an old woman without it, except in the homey atmosphere of Agricultural Shows.
Indeed, farming took second place only to her marriage once Potter reached her fifties. She was fascinated by nature and constantly recorded the world around her in her drawings. What fascinated Beatrix the most were fungi. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was inspired by an illustrated letter Potter wrote to Noel Moore, the ill son of her former governess, Annie, in The letter described four rabbits — Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter, and their mother. She illustrated the letter with sketches, which the boy adored and, ultimately, asked for more stories.
Potter later asked to borrow the letter back and copied the pictures and story, which she then modified to craft the much-loved tale. The famous novel was also inspired by her own pet rabbit, Benjamin bunny — she often took him for walks on a lead! She self published the book in By the end of its first year in print, 20, Peter Rabbit books had been sold and were in so much demand they had to be reprinted six times! Beatrix Potter was a very clever business woman. She recognised that readers of her animal books would buy other items connected with the stories.
Her childrens' books evolved more unexpectedly, from illustrated letters she wrote to the children of her former governess, Annie Moore. The first, to Noel in September , featured a rabbit. Others included one to Eric about a frog and another to Norah about a squirrel. In , after six publishers rejected the idea, Beatrix set about printing her own edition. Frederick Warne later agreed to publish an edition, which was an immediate success.
This marked the start of a life-long working relationship between Potter and Warne. Her work for Warne also brought Potter friendship with, and then love for, her editor Norman Warne, who proposed in She accepted, defying her parents, who considered a tradesman an unsuitable match for their daughter — despite their own background in 'trade'. In the event, the marriage never took place, since Norman unexpectedly died of pernicious anaemia less than a month after proposing.
Beatrix was devastated and threw herself into buying and renovating a new property, Hill Top Farm in Sawrey in the Lake District. Although unable to live there permanently because she had to look after her parents in London, she stayed as often as possible and began to learn the business of running a farm.
She continued to write one or two new books a year for Warne for the next eight years. In , through purchasing another Cumbrian property, Castle Farm near to Hill Top , she met and then befriended a local solicitor, William Heelis. After a period of having to battle her parents' objections to her relationship with 'a country solicitor', Beatrix married William in This interest would later become the inspiration for her stories. The Potters took long holidays each year to the countryside in Scotland and the Lake District, where Beatrix indulged in her interest in nature, spending hours exploring and sketching the wildlife.
Her first visit to the Lake District was in when she visited Wray Castle, a Victorian gothic mansion. Beatrix frequently returned from holiday with animals such as mice, rabbits, newts, caterpillars and birds which formed an entire menagerie that lived in the schoolroom. Beatrix had become close friends with her former governess, Annie Moore. Several years later Beatrix turned one of the tales into a picture book.
It was rejected by several publishers, so she privately printed copies of it herself. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was a great success with family and friends.
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