Potter, Beatrix

discussing guinea-pigs (‘…The pig in the picture was a short haired guinea pig, who was very anxious to get his hair to grow, and he had misfortunes with it, he used too much hair oil, with dreadful results!’), noting Warnes’ preference to publish stories (‘…I wrote it out in a copy-book with the stories of the “Two Bad Mice” and the “Pie and the Patty Pan”, and the gentleman who prints my books said he liked the other stories best, so the guinea pigs did not get finished…’), mentioning fan letters and autograph hunters (‘…I get so many letters that I keep them until there are a heap, and then I put half of them in the fire! but I shall tie yours up in a bundle with the rest of the nice letters from real boys and girls. I think some of the letters I get are written by grown-ups, who want… an autograph…’), providing details of future books (‘…you must look out for a picture book about a frog next autumn… I think your little sister will like another rabbit story better… a very simple short one…’) and giving details of her pet rabbits and recently deceased hedgehog, 4 pages, Sawrey, 12mo, 6 May 1906, mourning stationery, with remnants of envelope, creases and tears along creases

At the end of the letter Beatrix Potter signs off with two miniature pen and ink sketches of Jeremy Fisher (approximately 20 by 50mm. and 22 by 30mm.)



A charming letter which presumably makes reference to The Tale of Tuppenny. Leslie Linder notes that ‘three stories [were] contained in a stiff-covered exercise book inscribed, ‘Hastings, Nov. 26th – Dec. 3rd.’ The stories are Something very very NICE, The Tale of Tuppenny, and The Tale of Hunca Munca or The Tale of Two Bad Mice… [Potter] hoped that Warnes would choose one of them to be published in 1904.’ (see Linder, A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter, London, 1971, p. 149). It is rare to find a letter from Potter discussing the selection of stories by her publisher.



The Tale of Tuppenny would later be rewritten for The Fairy Caravan and, in the early 1920s, Beatrix Potter would call her own pet guinea pig by the name of Tuppenny. Verse (and illustrations) about ‘an amiable guinea-pig’ appeared within Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes in 1917.



Potter notes, in this letter, that the model for Tuppenny ‘didn’t belong to me, he belonged to a little girl…’ She neglects to mention that when she borrowed a guinea pig, named Queen Elizabeth, from Miss Paget in 1893 it died during the night and had to be returned to its owner as ‘a damp and disagreeable body’ (see Taylor, Whaley, Hobbs and Battrick, p.159).



There are references in the letter to the forthcoming The Tale of Jeremy Fisher (published two months later) and The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit (published six months later).

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