Beatrix Potter Wrote for the Money
She loved animals and drawing. Publishing paid the bills.
On a recent trip to the Lake District, I visited Beatrix Potter’s home. I didn’t know much about her, but I’m always up for a tour of a charming historic country home, so before we left, I read up on her and listened to this excellent Countrystride episode.
I was surprised to find out that she mostly owed her career to financial desperation. As soon as she had enough money, she did what she really wanted to do: raise sheep, draw pictures, and live in the countryside. The books were just a way to get her there.
When I think about the lifetime output of a legendary writer, I tend to think about what their books did for all of us. The readers. The culture. But it’s interesting to think about what a writer’s books do for the writer. What function do they serve, in the writer’s life?
Beatrix was born in 1866 into the kind of middle-class English lifestyle that was surprisingly hard on girls. Her family wasn’t wealthy enough to send her on a grand tour of Europe, introduce her into society, and negotiate a marriage to someone who would at least be wealthy, if not interesting or loveable. But they also weren’t poor enough to require her to go to work, which would’ve at least gotten her out of the house, with a slim chance of a good marriage or some kind of job with upward mobility.
Instead, she was mostly schooled at home. She had few friends. Her parents discouraged work and didn’t even want to see her married. They wanted her to be their caregiver into their old age. Her life was maddeningly narrow and confined.
But she loved animals and was a good artist. She was also a budding scientist: when a pet died, she’d boil it down to the bones and sketch the skeleton. At the age of 14, she started a diary that she wrote entirely in a code of her own creation, a code that was not cracked until 1958. So—she was a smart, weird kid.
In her twenties, she became interested in mycology, did some incredibly detailed scientific drawings of mushrooms, and wrote a paper that could not be published under her own name because, in case I haven’t mentioned this part already, she was a woman in the nineteenth century.
She also realized that she was never going to have any kind of life unless she had her own money and could make her own decisions. So she started selling her drawings of animals to greeting card publishers, which led to book illustration jobs. This was all a way to fund her independence--she basically bought her freedom with adorable pictures of bunnies in coats and hats.
The first Peter Rabbit book was based on illustrated letters she was sending to the children of her former governess. When she couldn’t find a publisher, she published it herself, in a print run of 200 copies.
The book was a success, and publishers decided they were interested after all. After a few more Peter Rabbit books, Beatrix was earning a comfortable living, but still living at home. In 1905, just shy of 40 years of age, she announced she was marrying a man who worked at her publishing house. Her parents went ballistic and her brother had to intervene to convince them that getting married was not an entirely weird thing for their only daughter to do. Tragically, her fiancé died unexpectedly a few months later.
She must’ve decided at that point that she’d had enough of waiting around for her life to begin. She took her earnings and bought Hill Top, the home I visited. Finally, at the age of 40, this smart, successful, broken-hearted woman could build a real life for herself.
Now she really had a purpose. She got interested in sheep farming, and particularly in preserving the local Herdwick sheep. She continued to write books, but it was mostly to feed her sheep habit. Every time she had some money, she’d acquire more land. Anytime she wanted more land, she’d write another book. (And at the age of 47, she finally married and enjoyed a happy thirty years with him.)
She cared passionately about saving the old sheep-farming ways, and she used her considerable skills and wealth to make sure that happened. She left 4,000 acres and 15 working farms to the National Trust, with the stipulation that the Herdwick sheep be preserved. This became the foundation of what is now the Lake District National Park.
That’s what Beatrix Potter’s books meant to Beatrix Potter. Independence and sheep farming.
If you’d like to watch a romanticized, Hallmark-ish, but nonetheless cozy and comforting biopic of Beatrix Potter starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, you can catch this one on YouTube or other streamers for a few bucks:
Portland! Join me at Powell’s!
I’ll be in conversation with the amazing Jeff VanderMeer, who will be talking about his extraordinary new novel, Absolution. It’s sure to be a weird and wonderful night. Please join us at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s on Friday Oct 24 at 7 PM.
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Beatrix's sketchbook looks amazing, as are your sketches, especially the sheep. I love them. I also love that you researched her before visiting - adds a depth to the visit of an historical place, I think. I What an interesting woman and hurrah for her for leaving property and sheep to the National Trust. What a gal. Great post, Amy.
Great post! You bring her to life 🧡