| Revision as of 09:33, 20 January 2022 editSchnitzelking (talk | contribs)470 editsm Add non-breaking spacesTag: Visual edit← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 05:41, 27 December 2024 edit undoKjell Knudde (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users139,046 edits Added more categories. | ||
| (44 intermediate revisions by 20 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Short description|Children's book by Beatrix Potter}} | {{Short description|Children's book by Beatrix Potter}} | ||
| {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} | |||
| {{Good article}} | |||
| {{Infobox |
{{Infobox Book | <!-- See ] or ] --> | ||
| | name = The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck | | name = The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck | ||
| | image = The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck cover.jpg | | image = The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck cover.jpg | ||
| | |
| image_caption = First edition cover | ||
| | author = ] | | author = ] | ||
| | illustrator = Beatrix Potter | | illustrator = ] | ||
| | country = England | | country = ] | ||
| | language = English | | language = ] | ||
| | genre = Children's literature | | genre = ] | ||
| | publisher = ] | | publisher = ] | ||
| | release_date = |
| release_date = ] | ||
| | media_type = Print ( |
| media_type = Print (]) | ||
| | preceded_by = ] | | preceded_by = ] | ||
| | followed_by = ] | | followed_by = ] | ||
| | wikisource = The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck | |||
| }} | }} | ||
| '''''The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck''''' is a children's book written and illustrated by ] |
'''''The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck''''' is a ] written and illustrated by ] and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in ]. The protagonist Jemima Puddle-Duck first appeared in '']''. | ||
| == Origins == | |||
| Jemima is a domestic duck of the ] breed, whose eggs are routinely confiscated by the farmer's wife because she believes Jemima to be a poor sitter. Jemima searches for a place away from the farm where she can hatch her eggs without human interference, and naively confides her woes to a suave ] who invites her to nest in a shed at his home. Jemima accepts his invitation, little realising her danger: the fox plans to kill and roast her. Kep, a collie on the farm, discovers Jemima's whereabouts and rescues her just in time. Potter indicated the tale was a revision of "]" with Jemima, the fox, and the dog acting as parallels to the fairy tale's heroine, wolf, and woodcutter. Jemima, Kep, the farmer's wife, and her two children were all modelled on real world individuals at Potter's Hill Top farm. | |||
| The tale is set in Potter's ] farm, ].{{sfn|Taylor|1987|p=26}} Her biographer Judy Taylor suggests that a drawing by Beatrix's father, Rupert Potter, of a flying duck wearing a bonnet, may have been a forerunner of Jemima Puddle-Duck,{{sfn|Taylor|1987|p=37}} and indeed there is a painting of Jemima flying in a bonnet in the book.{{sfn|Taylor|1987|pp=133–136}} One of her early stories, too, a book of fables called ''The Tale of the Birds and Mr Tod'', featured a "vain and foolish" Jemima-like bird.{{sfn|Taylor|1987|p=66}} | |||
| The book was hugely popular. Spinoff merchandise included a soft Jemima doll in bonnet and shawl, a Jemima painting book in 1925, and illustrated fabric placemats hand-fashioned by Potter and distributed to friends. Critically, the book is considered one of Potter's best. | |||
| Jemima makes her first appearance in print in the 1907 book '']'', as a supporting character. ''The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck'' came out the following year; it was subtitled ''A Farmyard Tale for Ralph and Betsy ''. The farm (as opposed to Hill Top, the house that Potter used in numerous tales) was home to her agent John Cannon and his family, with a small herd of cows, thirty sheep, and some pigs, ducks, and chickens. Mrs Cannon was in the habit of getting her chicken "Henny Penny" to sit on duck eggs when the mother, as often happened, was a "bad sitter".{{sfn|Taylor|1987|pp=133–136}} | |||
| == Plot == | == Plot == | ||
| ] depicts Jemima confiding in the fox. Her ] was not the fashion among farmwomen at the time of the book's publication but its incorporation in the text and illustrations sets the tale in a not-too-distant fairy tale past.]] | |||
| ] | |||
| The tale begins in a farmyard which is home to a duck called Jemima Puddle-duck. She wants to hatch her own eggs, but the farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and routinely confiscates their eggs to allow the hens to incubate them. Jemima tries to hide her eggs, but they are always found and carried away. She sets off along the road in her ] and shawl to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. | |||
| Jemima Puddle-Duck is not allowed to keep the eggs she lays at the farm, so she seeks out a nesting place in the forest. A charming gentleman fox talks her into nesting at his house on a mysteriously ample supply of feathers. He sends the naive Jemima out to collect traditional herbs for stuffing a duck, saying it is for an omelette. The farm collie, Kep, is able to see through the fox's plan and rescues Jemima. She is eventually able to hatch four ducklings back at the farm. | |||
| At the top of a hill, she spies a distant wood, flies to it, and waddles about until she discovers an appropriate nesting place among the foxgloves. However, a charming gentleman with "black prick ears and sandy-coloured whiskers" persuades her to nest in a shed at his home. Jemima is led to his "tumble-down shed" (which is curiously filled with feathers), and makes herself a nest with little ado. | |||
| == Reception == | |||
| Jemima lays her eggs, and the fox suggests a dinner party to mark the event. He asks her to collect the traditional herbs used in stuffing a duck, telling her the seasonings will be used for an omelet. Jemima sets about her errand, but the farm collie, Kep, meets her as she carries onions from the farm kitchen and asks her what she is doing and where she keeps going. She reveals her errand, Kep sees through the fox's plan at once, and finds out from Jemima where the fox lives. | |||
| Taylor comments that the tale is a cautionary fable warning about going into the unknown. The story's curiously ambiguous elements, such as Jemima's nesting in a pile of feathers, and her obediently collecting ] and ] for the fox to use to make the ] to eat when he makes a meal of Jemima, offer a lesson in irony. The book is almost as popular as the first of Potter's "little books", '']''.{{sfn|Taylor|1987|pp=133–136}} | |||
| With the help of two ] puppies who are out at walk at the farm, Kep rescues Jemima and the "foxy-whiskered gentleman" (Mr. Tod) is chased away and seen again in ] ]. However, the hungry fox-hounds eat Jemima's eggs. Jemima is escorted back to the farm in tears over her lost eggs, but, in time, lays more eggs and successfully hatches four ducklings.<ref name="MacD111">MacDonald 1986, p. 111</ref> | |||
| == |
== Adaptations == | ||
| ''The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck'' is a tale of pursuit and prey. The theme runs through several of Potter's tales: ] ] pursues ], Simpkin lies in wait for the mice in ]'s shop, and the trout attempts to devour ]. Potter was following the pattern of fairy tales by dwelling on the theme of pursuit and prey, and often pointed out that the tale of Jemima was a retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood". Perrault's tale ends with the death of the heroine, but Potter understood children will not tolerate tragedy. The prey in her books survive for better or worse (Peter returns home for a dose of chamomile tea, for example) and, though Jemima loses her eggs to her hungry rescuers, she lives to return to the farm to raise a brood of ducklings.<ref name="Lane126-8">Lane 2001, pp. 126-8</ref> | |||
| In 1993, an animated film adaptation of the story was featured on the ] television ], '']'' where it was shown along with ''The Tale of Tom Kitten''. | |||
| The tale shows Potter at her best in depicting the life of the farm and the village of ], but the tale becomes one of something more than just local colour and interest. The archetypical tale upon which ''Jemima'' is based – the foolish and naive are rescued from destruction by the loyal and dependable – is transformed in Potter's hands to one in which self-preservation and shrewdness become admirable virtues. ] thought the sandy-whiskered gentleman a character of ominous gloom and suggested Potter had suffered some sort of mental breakdown, but it is more likely she was simply coming to terms with life on a farm. Wild animals invade the precincts of the domesticated ones, and death is part of farming.<ref>MacDonald 1986, p. 114</ref> | |||
| == References == | |||
| The victor in the tale is the farmer's wife: she regains her errant duck and is rid of the predatory fox. Ostensibly, she confiscates Jemima's eggs believing Jemima will abandon them, but the eggs are not confiscated for the well-being of Jemima and her kin but for the well-being of the farmer's wife and her family: the eggs (or the ducks hatched from them) will end up on their dinner table. In this respect, the farmer's wife is a predator like the fox, but the fox is condemned for his predation. Human values are at the top of the tale's hierarchy. Potter argues for the well-ordered home and the practicalities of farm life over the fantasy lives of animals. It was the '']'' Potter was to incorporate in her own life as she devoted more of her thoughts and hours to the business of farming and less to tales of fantasy animals.<ref>Kutzer 2003, pp. 105-6, 111</ref> | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| Like many fairy tales, ''Jemima Puddle-Duck'' belongs in a remote, but not-too-distant, past. Jemima's shawl reflects the typical farm dress of the Lake District at the time of the tale's composition, but the poke bonnet does not, and the fox's long tail coat and exquisite manners also suggest another time. Jemima is a more interesting character when humanised with the clothing; without it, she is just a farmyard duck. As Potter pointed out, the tale is a revision of a fairy tale and belongs in the indefinite period of "once upon a time".<ref name="MacD111"/> | |||
| == Sources == | |||
| The story is one of Potter's more ominous and is fraught with tension. Jemima is a headstrong innocent distracted by her overwhelming desire to nest, and thus unable to penetrate the fox's designs and comprehend her dangerous situation. The tension rises in increments from the mysterious feather-filled shed (the place of slaughter), to the fox's plan for an omelette (of Jemima's eggs), to the ultimate horror and crowning irony, Jemima's errand to fetch the herbs that will be used to season herself.<ref>MacDonald 1986, pp. 111-2</ref> | |||
| * {{cite book |last=Taylor |first=Judy |title=Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943 |publisher=] |publication-place=London |date=1987 |isbn=0-7232-3561-9}} | |||
| The fox is the first male villain in Potter's work, saving Samuel Whiskers in '']'', the companion piece to ''Jemima'', and, like all villains in Potter, the "gentleman with sandy whiskers" presents a false social front that conceals his bestial nature. He dresses and behaves as a country gentleman of leisure, idling with a newspaper and living off the labor of others by luring their fowl to his feather-filled shed. Potter had little tolerance for indolence and lack of industry, but, as a country woman, she knew foxes were clever and managed to escape more times than they were caught. From the first encounter between Jemima and the fox, the reader realises the fox is more clever than Jemima and is forced to extend him a grudging admiration.<ref>Kutzer 2003, p. 109</ref> | |||
| == |
== External links == | ||
| {{Main article|Beatrix Potter}} | |||
| ] | |||
| {{Wikisource}} | |||
| Helen Beatrix Potter was born on 28 July 1866 to ] Rupert William Potter and his wife Helen (Leech) Potter in London. She was educated by ]es and tutors, and passed a quiet childhood reading, painting, drawing, visiting museums and art exhibitions, and tending a nursery menagerie of small animals. Her interests in the natural world and country life were nurtured with holidays in Scotland, the ], and Camfield Place, the ] home of her paternal grandparents.<ref>MacDonald 1986, pp. 1–4</ref> | |||
| * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/beatrix-potter/short-fiction|Display Name=An omnibus of Potter's children's tales|noitalics=true}} | |||
| Potter's adolescence was as quiet as her childhood. She grew into a spinsterish young woman whose parents groomed her to be a permanent resident and housekeeper in their home.<ref>MacDonald 1986, pp. 6–7</ref> She continued to paint and draw, and experienced her first professional artistic success in 1890 when she sold six designs of ] to a greeting card publisher.<ref>Taylor 1996, pp. 51–2</ref> She hoped to lead a useful life independent of her parents, and tentatively considered a career in ], but the all-male scientific community regarded her as an amateur and she abandoned fungi.<ref>Taylor 1996, p. 60,67</ref><ref>MacDonald 1986, p. 13</ref> | |||
| * {{gutenberg|no=14814|name=The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck}} | |||
| Potter had maintained contact with her last governess ] and had grown fond of her children. Through the 1890s, she sent illustrated story letters to the children. Mrs. Moore recognised the literary and artistic value of the letters and urged her former charge to publish.<ref name="Lear142">Lear 2007, p. 142</ref> Potter liked the suggestion, and, in 1900, revised a tale she had written for five-year-old Noel Moore in 1893, and fashioned a dummy book of it in imitation of ]'s 1899 bestseller '']''.<ref name="Lear144">Lear 2007, p. 144</ref> Unable to find a buyer for the tale, she published it for family and friends at her own expense in December 1901.<ref name="Lear145">Lear 2007, p. 145</ref> | |||
| ] | |||
| ] ]. had once rejected the tale but, eager to compete in the booming small format children's book market, reconsidered and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) following the recommendation of their prominent children's book artist ] ].<ref>Lear 2007, pp. 144–7</ref> Potter agreed to colour her pen and ink illustrations, chose the then-new ] for reproducing her watercolours,<ref name="Hobbs15">Hobbs 1989, p. 15</ref> and on 2 October 1902 '']'' was released.<ref>Taylor 1996, p. 76</ref> | |||
| Potter continued to publish with Warnes. Early in July 1905 she bought ], a working farm of {{convert|34|acre}} at ] in the ] with profits from her books and a small legacy from an aunt. On 25 August 1905 Potter's editor and fiancé, ] died suddenly and unexpectedly. Potter became deeply depressed and was ill for many weeks,<ref>Lane 1978, p. 140</ref> but rallied to complete the last few tales she had planned and discussed with Warne.<ref>Lear 2007, p. 206</ref> | |||
| {{clear}} | |||
| == Production == | |||
| In 1900 Beatrix Potter revised a tale about a ] she had written in 1893, worked up a dummy book in imitation of the small format bestseller '']'' (1899), and, after multiple rejections from London publishers, privately published her tale in December 1901. ] ]. was eager to compete in the burgeoning and lucrative small format children's book market, and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) after their prominent children's book artist ] ] gave it his enthusiastic endorsement.<ref>Lear 2007, pp. 144-7</ref> Potter agreed to colour her pen and ink illustrations, chose the then-new ] for reproducing her watercolours,<ref name="Hobbs15" /> and in October 1902 '']'' was released.<ref name="MacDChrono"/> | |||
| ] | |||
| In the next few years, Potter published books similar in concept, style, or format to ''Peter Rabbit'': '']'' and '']'' in 1903, and the tales of '']'' and '']'' in 1904.<ref name="MacDChrono">MacDonald 1986, Chronology</ref> In August 1905, sales profits and a small legacy from an aunt enabled Potter to buy ], a working farm of 34 acres and 36 perches (13.85 ha) in the ].<ref>Lear 2007, p. 237</ref> In the years immediately following its purchase, she produced tales and illustrations inspired by the farm, its woodland surroundings, and nearby villages.<ref name="Mac75">MacDonald 1986, p. 75</ref> | |||
| Potter worked on sketches for ''Jemima Puddle-Duck'' during the winter of 1907 while recuperating from respiratory infections. She accompanied her parents on a holiday to ] in April 1908, and continued to work on ''Jemima Puddle-Duck''.<ref name="Lear222"/> Potter's cousin Caroline Hutton Clark was at Hill Top during the composition of ''Jemima Puddle-Duck'' and joined Potter as she searched the farmstead for a suitable place in which to situate Jemima's nest for the illustrations.<ref name="Lane98-9">Lane 2001, pp. 98-9</ref> Kep was a real dog,<ref name="Tay133">Taylor 1987, p. 133</ref> and Mrs. Clark was given one of Kep's sons. She later described the puppy as "the dearest and cleverest dog I ever had."<ref name="Lane98-9"/> | |||
| Two versions of the opening paragraph were written. The slightly cynical, "What a gratifying thing it is in these days to meet with a female devoted to family life" was revised to read, "What a funny sight it is to see a brood of ducklings with a hen."<ref name="Taylor135">Taylor 1987, p. 135</ref> The tale is complicated with ] (the feather-filled shed and the herbs for roasting a duck) and the co-existence of two time sequences or two different points of view: Kep's as he seeks the assistance of the fox-hounds in rescuing Jemima, and the sandy-whiskered gentleman's as he waits nervously for Jemima to return with the herbs.<ref>Taylor 1987, p. 134</ref> | |||
| The "farmyard tale" was dedicated to Betsy and Ralph Cannon, the children of Potter's farm manager, John Cannon. The children appear in one of the illustrations collecting Jemima's eggs from the rhubarb patch, and their mother is depicted in the opening picture feeding the barnyard fowl.<ref name="Tay133"/> Jemima was based upon a real world duck at Hill Top Farm who evaded Mrs. Cannon and her children in their attempts to locate her eggs before she mismanaged their incubation. Mrs. Cannon believed ducks made poor sitters, and routinely confiscated the ducks' eggs to allow the hens to incubate them.<ref name="MacD111"/> Potter may have taken inspiration from a drawing in her father's 1853 sketchbook of a flying duck wearing a bonnet.<ref>Taylor 1987, p. 37</ref> Potter almost certainly chose the name "Jemima" in honour of ], an ornithological painter and illustrator whose ''Birds from Nature'' she had received as a gift on her tenth birthday and whom she met in 1891.<ref name="Lear222">Lear 2008, p. 222</ref> | |||
| The illustrations depict the new barn and outbuildings at Hill Top, the wrought-iron gate Potter installed at the kitchen garden, the rhubarb patch, the entrance porch at the farmhouse, the exterior of the Tower Bank Arms in the village, and imagined aerial views of the countryside around Near Sawrey.<ref>Lear 2008, p. 223</ref> In 1940, Potter remarked upon the illustration of Jemima rushing downhill with her bonnet and shawl askew, "That is what I used to look like to the Sawrey people. I rushed about quacking industriously."<ref>Lear 2008, p. 428</ref> | |||
| ''The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck'' was published in July 1908 after heated discussions with publisher Harold Warne about the dialogues and cover illustration. The book was an immediate success.<ref name="Lear222"/> | |||
| In later years, ] would blatantly ] not only the Peter Rabbit character in his ''The Treasure Seekers'' but Jemima in his ''Mrs.'' ''Beak Duck''. Potter was restrained when alerted to the imitations: she praised his technical artistry but chastised him for a lack of originality. At the time, her eyesight was deteriorating and her days were heavily invested in operating her farm; her restraint with Aris may be attributed to her desire to enlist him as a collaborator.<ref>Lear 2008, p. 281</ref> | |||
| == Similarities to "Little Red Riding Hood" == | |||
| ], 1875. Crane, ], and ] were Potter's childhood favourites.]] | |||
| Potter indicated ''Jemima'' was a revision of "]", and the similarities between the two are numerous: Jemima and her eggs are substitutes for Red Riding Hood and her grandmother; the farmer's wife and Jemima's sister-in-law Rebeccah are substitutes for Red Riding Hood's mother; the fox and the wolf both conceal their bestial natures beneath the polite behaviour of gentlemen, and the dogs are substitutes for the woodcutters. Both tales touch upon physical appetite, temptation, and foolish behaviour.<ref>Kutzer 2003, pp. 107-8</ref> | |||
| Though the tale has a happy ending, tearful Jemima is led back to the farm in public humiliation after losing her eggs to her hungry rescuers. She is allowed to hatch a brood on the farm, but it only produces four ducklings. Potter's revision of "Little Red Riding Hood" more nearly resembles Perrault's tragic tale than the happily-ever-after Grimm version where the heroine is rescued by woodcutters. The author knew her young audience would sympathise with the unhatched ducklings and would not tolerate having Jemima, a mother figure, suffer a bloody end in the fox's shed. The loss of the eggs is sad for the reader, but Potter ended the tale as happily as possible – not only for her audience but for the sake of the real world children of her farm manager, Ralph and Betsy Cannon, to whom the tale was dedicated. Jemima is punished for her headstrong foolishness and must relinquish her hope of finding a nesting spot away from the farm, but the punishment is mitigated when she is allowed to hatch one brood herself.<ref>MacDonald 1986, pp. 112-3</ref> | |||
| == Merchandising == | |||
| ''Jemima Puddle-Duck'' was popular, almost as popular as ''Peter Rabbit'', and became the subject of ancillary merchandise. She is depicted in one of the four well known endpapers of the Potter books, and was featured on a Christmas card for the Invalid Children's Aid Association. She became the principal character in an unpublished painting book describing the livestock at Hill Top, and appeared in '']'' and '']'' before being given her own painting book, '']'' in 1925, composed grudgingly in response to public demand for yet another book.<ref name="Tay136">Taylor 1987, p. 136</ref> | |||
| Potter waited for ducklings to hatch at the farm to be used as models for the painting book, but in the end, the eggs were rotten. The instructions in Jemima's painting book were similar to those in Tom Kitten's painting book, but the kittens with crayons in Tom's book accompanying the instructions were replaced by six ducklings splashing about in paint water for the similar page in Jemima's book. In the original tale, Jemima's eggs are eaten by her rescuers but in the painting book, a new design was executed for "They took Jemima home"; in the painting book, Kep and the fox hound puppies lead Jemima away from her broken but uneaten eggs. The same theme was depicted on ] chocolate Easter eggs.<ref name="Tay136"/> | |||
| The painting book displays Potter's willingness to exploit the commercial possibilities of her characters and tales. The purchaser was alerted to the existence of other Potter books on the inside front cover and directed to a list of books on the back cover.<ref>MacDonald 1986, p. 129</ref> Other merchandise included sets of linen or silk placemats painted by Potter for friends with an abridged text and 12 of the illustrations. In 1910, Potter patented a design for a soft toy duck based on her model of Jemima in a Paisley handkerchief shawl and bonnet.<ref name="Tay136"/> A soft Jemima doll was manufactured by J. I. Farnell of Acton.<ref>Lear 2008, p. 288</ref> | |||
| ==Adaptations== | |||
| *In 1971, the tale became a segment in the ] film, '']''. | |||
| *In 1992, the tale was telecast as an episode on the animated ] ], '']''.<ref>Taylor 1996, p. 217</ref> | |||
| *Jemima Puddle-Duck appears in the 2012 CGI animated television series of '']'' in ]. | |||
| *Jemima Puddle-Duck appears in the 2018 animated/live-action film adaptation of '']'', and ] voiced by ]. | |||
| == References == | |||
| ;Footnotes | |||
| {{reflist|30em}} | |||
| ;Works cited | |||
| {{refbegin}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Denyer, Susan |year=2009 |orig-year=2000 |title=At Home with Beatrix Potter: The creator of Peter Rabbit |publisher=Frances Lincoln Limited in association with the National Trust |isbn=978-0-7112-3018-7}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Kutzer, M. Daphne |year=2003 |title=Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code |location= New York & London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-94352-3}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Lane, Margaret |year=1985 |orig-year=1946 |title=The Tale of Beatrix Potter |location=London |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-7232-4676-3}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Lear, Linda |year=2008 |orig-year=2007 |title=Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature |location=New York |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-312-37796-0}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=MacDonald, Ruth K. |year=1986 |title=Beatrix Potter |location=Boston |publisher=] |isbn=0-8057-6917-X |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/beatrixpotter0000macd }} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Taylor, Judy |author2=Whalley, Joyce Irene |author3=Hobbs, Anne Stevenson |author4=Battrick, Elizabeth M. |year=1987 |title=Beatrix Potter 1866–1943: The Artist and Her World |location=London |publisher=F. Warne & Co. and ] |isbn=0-7232-3561-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/beatrixpotter18600tayl }} | |||
| * {{cite book |author=Taylor, Judy |year=1996 |orig-year=1986 |title=Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman |publisher=Frederick Warne |isbn=0-7232-4175-9}} | |||
| {{refend}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{Commonscat}} | |||
| *{{Wikisource-inline|single=true}} | |||
| {{Gutenberg|no=14814|name=The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck}} | |||
| {{Beatrix Potter}} | {{Beatrix Potter}} | ||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Tale Of Jemima Puddle-Duck}} | |||
| {{bots|deny=Citation bot}} | |||
| ] | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, The}} | |||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Latest revision as of 05:41, 27 December 2024
Children's book by Beatrix Potter
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Beatrix Potter |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Beatrix Potter |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | Frederick Warne & Co |
| Publication date | 1908 |
| Publication place | England |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Preceded by | The Tale of Tom Kitten |
| Followed by | The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, The Roly-Poly Pudding |
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1908. The protagonist Jemima Puddle-Duck first appeared in The Tale of Tom Kitten.
Origins
The tale is set in Potter's Lake District farm, Hill Top. Her biographer Judy Taylor suggests that a drawing by Beatrix's father, Rupert Potter, of a flying duck wearing a bonnet, may have been a forerunner of Jemima Puddle-Duck, and indeed there is a painting of Jemima flying in a bonnet in the book. One of her early stories, too, a book of fables called The Tale of the Birds and Mr Tod, featured a "vain and foolish" Jemima-like bird.
Jemima makes her first appearance in print in the 1907 book The Tale of Tom Kitten, as a supporting character. The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck came out the following year; it was subtitled A Farmyard Tale for Ralph and Betsy . The farm (as opposed to Hill Top, the house that Potter used in numerous tales) was home to her agent John Cannon and his family, with a small herd of cows, thirty sheep, and some pigs, ducks, and chickens. Mrs Cannon was in the habit of getting her chicken "Henny Penny" to sit on duck eggs when the mother, as often happened, was a "bad sitter".
Plot
Jemima Puddle-Duck is not allowed to keep the eggs she lays at the farm, so she seeks out a nesting place in the forest. A charming gentleman fox talks her into nesting at his house on a mysteriously ample supply of feathers. He sends the naive Jemima out to collect traditional herbs for stuffing a duck, saying it is for an omelette. The farm collie, Kep, is able to see through the fox's plan and rescues Jemima. She is eventually able to hatch four ducklings back at the farm.
Reception
Taylor comments that the tale is a cautionary fable warning about going into the unknown. The story's curiously ambiguous elements, such as Jemima's nesting in a pile of feathers, and her obediently collecting sage and onion for the fox to use to make the stuffing to eat when he makes a meal of Jemima, offer a lesson in irony. The book is almost as popular as the first of Potter's "little books", The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Adaptations
In 1993, an animated film adaptation of the story was featured on the BBC television anthology series, The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends where it was shown along with The Tale of Tom Kitten.
References
- Taylor 1987, p. 26.
- Taylor 1987, p. 37.
- ^ Taylor 1987, pp. 133–136.
- Taylor 1987, p. 66.
Sources
- Taylor, Judy (1987). Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943. London: Frederick Warne & Co. ISBN 0-7232-3561-9.
External links
- An omnibus of Potter's children's tales at Standard Ebooks
- The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck at Project Gutenberg