Helpful Score: 1
Linda Lear's story about Beatrix Potter opens up a world so very far beyond the image of a Victorian author dabbling in children's books. Ms Potter was a self-taught naturalist who also happened to write stories and poetry for children. If you stop and really look at her illustrations, you understand how intimately she knew each animal she drew.
The first part of the book heavily concentrates on Beatrix's studies of fungi and her struggle to have her research accepted by the Natural History Museums experts. It is painfully obvious that she is being treated like a silly woman who doesnt really understand things like germination of spores and symbiotic relations, even though she was better informed than they.
Her relation with Publisher Norman Warne brings her books and illustrations to publication; but more importantly, it gives her the financial independence which she seeks. Its not that she feels a burden to her parents, I think quite the opposite. They are, in fact, dependent on her to keep the house and staff running smoothly as well as arranging the moves to the properties which her father leases each summer in the Lake District. Thus her mother resists Beatrixs desire to marry Norman, judging him most unsuitable as a man in trade. She carries on, making up stories and poems and drawing the nature surrounding her. Her picture letters to the children of her former nanny form the basis for Peter Rabbit as well as Benjamin Bunny. The sketchbooks from a lifetime in the country provide the background to her stories, from Farmer McGregors remarkable resemblance to Charles McIntosh to the pictures of fabrics she copied from the Victoria & Albert and used in The Tailor of Gloucester.
As Beatrix gains financially she buys Hill Top Farm near where the family spent their summers. The authors descriptions of the Lake District and Beatrix working to preserve the area through the National Trust make you yearn to jump on the next plane so you can walk the fells, visit Near Sawry and see for yourself Hill Top Farm and Castle Cottage knowing that theyre still exactly as they were in the first half of the 20th century. She was so firm in her intention to maintain the character of the district, she refused to have electricity put into Hill Top Farm. Her writing and painting seem to have become secondary to the maintenance of her fell farms, breeding of Herdwicke Sheep & the preservation of the Lake District. She used her royalties plus the not inconsiderable inheritances from her family to enlarge her holdings. All of her properties were left to the National Trust & are all now contained in the Lake District National Park, just waiting for us to visit.
The first part of the book heavily concentrates on Beatrix's studies of fungi and her struggle to have her research accepted by the Natural History Museums experts. It is painfully obvious that she is being treated like a silly woman who doesnt really understand things like germination of spores and symbiotic relations, even though she was better informed than they.
Her relation with Publisher Norman Warne brings her books and illustrations to publication; but more importantly, it gives her the financial independence which she seeks. Its not that she feels a burden to her parents, I think quite the opposite. They are, in fact, dependent on her to keep the house and staff running smoothly as well as arranging the moves to the properties which her father leases each summer in the Lake District. Thus her mother resists Beatrixs desire to marry Norman, judging him most unsuitable as a man in trade. She carries on, making up stories and poems and drawing the nature surrounding her. Her picture letters to the children of her former nanny form the basis for Peter Rabbit as well as Benjamin Bunny. The sketchbooks from a lifetime in the country provide the background to her stories, from Farmer McGregors remarkable resemblance to Charles McIntosh to the pictures of fabrics she copied from the Victoria & Albert and used in The Tailor of Gloucester.
As Beatrix gains financially she buys Hill Top Farm near where the family spent their summers. The authors descriptions of the Lake District and Beatrix working to preserve the area through the National Trust make you yearn to jump on the next plane so you can walk the fells, visit Near Sawry and see for yourself Hill Top Farm and Castle Cottage knowing that theyre still exactly as they were in the first half of the 20th century. She was so firm in her intention to maintain the character of the district, she refused to have electricity put into Hill Top Farm. Her writing and painting seem to have become secondary to the maintenance of her fell farms, breeding of Herdwicke Sheep & the preservation of the Lake District. She used her royalties plus the not inconsiderable inheritances from her family to enlarge her holdings. All of her properties were left to the National Trust & are all now contained in the Lake District National Park, just waiting for us to visit.
Helpful Score: 1
Very detailed account of the life and times of Beatrix Potter. This book has sketches, hand written notes and great descriptions of her life, travels.
