Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Susanne2009NYC (talk | contribs) at 06:02, 9 December 2009 (Entered month in release date in Infobox.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

First edition, 1902
Author	Beatrix Potter
Illustrator	Beatrix Potter
Language	English
Genre	Children's literature
Publisher	Frederick Warne & Co
Publication date	October 1902
Publication place	England
Media type	Print, (Hardcover)
OCLC	12533701
Followed by	The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943). The story follows Peter Rabbit, a mischievous and disobedient young rabbit, as he ventures into the garden of Mr. McGregor. The tale was written for five-year-old Noel Moore in 1893, revised, privately printed by Potter in 1901 after several publishers' rejections, and printed in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902. The book was a success, and multiple reprints were issued in the years immediately following its debut.

Warne's New York office failed to register the copyright for the tale in the United States, and, as a consequence, unlicensed copies flooded the market from which Potter received no royalties. The Tale of Peter Rabbit has been translated into 36 languages, and the book has generated considerable merchandise over the decades since its release for both children and adults with toys, dishes, foods, clothing, videos and other products made available. Potter was one of the first to be responsible for such merchandise when she patented a Peter Rabbit doll in 1903 and followed it almost immediately with a Peter Rabbit board game. By making the hero of the tale a disobedient and rebellious little rabbit, Potter subverted her era's definition of the good child and the literary hero genre which typically followed the adventures of a brave, resourceful, young white male.

Background

Helen Beatrix Potter was born into the privileged world of wealth at 2 Bolton Gardens in south-west London on 28 July 1866 to Rupert William and Helen Leech Potter. She led a solitary life as a child, solacing herself with her nursery collection of books, and by painting and drawing. Periodic visits to her paternal grandparents’ home in Hertfordshire nurtured her interests in nature and country life. It was there that she learned the names of wildflowers and birds, and observed the lives of wild and domesticated animals. When Potter was five the family began an eleven year tradition of taking their summer holidays in Perthshire, Scotland, where Potter sketched birds' eggs, caterpillars, and anthropomorphic fantasy rabbits at play.

Wherever the family called home, Potter found time to maintain a menagerie of birds, amphibians, and small mammals with rabbits being her favourite. At ten years of age, she had a pet rabbit named Tommy, and even into her twenties, she continued to keep rabbits with one called Benjamin H. Bouncer sketched from every angle, sleeping or awake, at rest or at play. He was the model for family Christmas cards, and, in 1889, at the suggestion of her brother Bertram, Potter sold six designs to the publisher Hildesheimer & Faulkner where they became not only greeting cards but the illustrations for a book of verse. It is unknown when Benjamin died but in 1892, Potter had acquired a rabbit she named Peter Piper.

In 1893, Potter began eight illustrations for Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus, completing the group in 1896. Harris would have great influence on her work during the following years with his 'rabbit tobacco', 'puddle-duck', and 'Cottontail' entering her own vocabulary. Harris's 'lippity-clippity, lippity-clippity' would be transformed to 'lippity-lippity' in Peter Rabbit, and his tales would serve as a reference point for Potter's creation of a universe where animals and humans overlap.

Composition

Through the 1890s, Potter sent illustrated story letters to the children of her former governess, Annie Moore, and, in 1900, Moore, realizing the commercial potential of Potter's stories, suggested they be made into books. Potter embraced the suggestion, and, borrowing her complete correspondence (which had been carefully preserved by the Moore children), selected a letter written in 1893 to five-year-old Noel Moore that featured a tale about a rabbit named Peter. The letter was too short to make a proper book so Potter expanded the tale and added black-and-white illustrations. Her revisions created a suspenseful tale, slowed the narrative pace, added intrigue, and gave a greater sense of the passage of time. She copied the work into a hardcover exercise book with a frontispiece depicting an incident from the tale.

Private publication

Potter's manuscript book was titled The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's Garden and sent to at least six publishers recommended by Potter's friends. The manuscript was returned by all six including Frederick Warne & Co. which a decade earlier had expressed an interest in her artwork. Some publishers wanted a shorter tale, some a longer one, and almost all wanted coloured illustrations which at that time were in demand and, through colour lithography, had become affordable. The several rejections proved frustrating to Potter who knew exactly how her book should look (she had adopted the format and style of Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo) and how much it should cost. She decided to publish the book herself, and, on 16 December 1901, the first 250 copies of her privately printed The Tale of Peter Rabbit were made available for distribution to family and friends.

First commercial edition

In 1901, a Potter family friend and sometime poet, Canon Rawnsley, set Potter's tale into didactic verse and delivered his version with her illustrations and a portion of her revised manuscript to Frederick Warne & Co., a firm which had earlier rejected the tale. Warne editors declined Rawnsley's version but asked to see the complete Potter manuscript – their interest stimulated by the opportunity The Tale of Peter Rabbit offered the publisher to compete with the success of Helen Bannerman's wildly popular Little Black Sambo and other small format children's books then on the market. When Warne inquired about the lack of colour illustrations in the book, Potter tersely replied that rabbit-brown and green were uninteresting. Warne declined the book but opened the possibility for future publication.

Warne wanted colour illustrations throughout the 'bunny book' (as the firm referred to the tale) and suggested cutting the illustrations from forty-two to thirty-two by indicating those to be eliminated. Potter initially resisted the idea of colour illustrations–adhering to her preference for black-and-white pictures in the book–but then realized her stubborn stance was a mistake. She sent Warne several new colour illustrations and a copy of her privately printed edition which Warne then handed to their eminent picture book artist L. Leslie Brooke for his professional opinion. Brooke gave an enthusiastic endorsement to Potter's work. Fortuitously, his recommendation coincided with a sudden surge in the small picture book market.

Meanwhile, Potter continued to distribute her privately printed edition to family and friends, with the celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, acquiring a copy for his children. When the first private printing of 250 copies was sold out, another 200 were prepared. She noted in an inscription in one copy that her beloved rabbit Peter had died 26 January 1901 at the age of nine.

Potter arrived at an agreement with Warne for an initial publication of 5,000 commercial copies priced at a very small sum with modest royalties for the author. Negotiations dragged on into the following year with a contract finally signed in June 1902. Potter was closely involved in the publication process of the trade edition of the tale – redrawing when necessary, adjusting the cadence, making minor adjustments to the prose, and correcting punctuation. Even before the publication of the tale in early October 1902, the first 8,000 copies were sold out. By the year's end there were 28,000 copies in print; by the middle of 1903 there was a fifth printing with coloured endpapers; a sixth printing was produced within the month; and a year after the first commercial publication there were 56,470 copies in print.

American copyright

Warne's New York office failed to register the copyright for The Tale of Peter Rabbit in the United States and unlicensed copies of the book (from which Potter would receive no royalties) began to appear in the spring of 1903. There was nothing that could be done to stop the flow of unlicensed copies. The enormous financial loss to Potter only became evident over time, but the necessity of protecting her intellectual property hit home after the successful 1903 publication of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin when her father returned from the Burlington Arcade in Mayfair at Christmas 1903 with a toy squirrel labelled Nutkin.

Plot summary

Peter, his sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, and his mother are anthropomorphic characters dressed in human clothing and generally walking upright on their hind legs. Peter is a young rabbit whose mother has forbidden him and his sisters to enter the garden of Mr. McGregor. It was there that their father met his untimely end and became the ingredient of a pie. When Mrs. Rabbit hurries off on an errand, Peter cannot resist the temptation to enter the garden. There, he gorges on vegetables until he gets sick, and then he is chased about by Mr. McGregor. When Peter loses his jacket and his shoes, Mr. McGregor uses them to dress a scarecrow. After several close encounters with Mr. McGregor, Peter escapes the garden and returns to his mother exhausted and ill. She puts him to bed with a dose of camomile tea while his sisters (who have been good little bunnies) enjoy bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

Characters

• Peter Rabbit, a mischievous and disobedient young rabbit
• Mr. McGregor, an elderly gentleman with a distinct dislike for rabbits in his garden
• Peter's mother, a widow whose husband was baked in a pie by Mrs. McGregor
• Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, Peter's sisters
• Several sparrows friendly to Peter
• An old mouse carrying a pea in her mouth
• Mr. McGregor's cat
• A robin who accompanies Peter through the garden and is depicted only in the illustrations

Merchandising

The Tale of Peter Rabbit has generated a great deal of spin-off merchandise since its first commercial publication. Potter registered the patent for a Peter Rabbit doll on 28 December 1903, and the following year designed a Peter Rabbit board game (with the odds in Peter's favour). She set strict standards for those wanting to produce licensed merchandise such as stuffed toys, activity books, china tea sets, figurines, wallpapers, stationery, birthday and Christmas cards, and other merchandise from which she would receive royalties. The widespread popularity and success of Peter Rabbit merchandise caused Potter to proclaim in 1917, "All rabbits are called Peter now" – but qualified the statement for her American readers with "either Peter or Brer Rabbit."

Considerable variants on the original format and version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit as well as spin-off merchandise have been made available over the decades. Variant versions include pop-up books, toy theatres, and lift-the-flap books. By 1998, modern technology had made available video versions of the tale, audio cassette retellings, a CD-ROM, a computer program, and Internet sites. Warne and its collaborators and competitors have produced activity books and a monthly educational magazine. Other materials for both children and adults have included puppets, mobiles, stuffed animals, crib toys, board games, dishes and china figurines, clocks and music boxes, hand-knitted sweaters and books of knitting patterns, bolts of fabric, baby and children's clothing, tea, jam, toothbrushes and soap, place-mats and coasters, wall stencils, stickers, paper towels, and even a cake was sold in British supermarkets. Major toy shops in the United States and Britain have had store sections earmarked exclusively for Potter-related toys and merchandise. In Britain's Lake District (where most of the tales are set) and in the Covent Garden area of London where Warne is located, many shops have been devoted entirely to the Potter-related merchandise.

Pirating of The Tale of Peter Rabbit has flourished over the decades with products only loosely associated with the original. An animated version of the tale, for example, gave Peter buck teeth, a fourth sister Hopsy, and an American accent, while another video retelling of the tale cast Peter as a Christian preacher singing songs about God and Jesus with a group of children and vegetables.

Critical commentaries

The text is often praised for its economy of words and the rhythmic drive of phrasing like the four-stress lines of alternating dactyls and iambic feet

But round the end of a cucumber frame,
whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!

which is followed by the suspenseful pause of a page turned.

Biographer Linda Lear notes that Potter created a new form of animal fable in The Tale of Peter Rabbit—one in which anthropomorphic animals look and behave like real animals with real animal instincts, and a form of fable with anatomically correct illustrations drawn by a scientifically minded artist. She further states Peter Rabbit's nature is familiar to rabbit enthusiasts (and endorsed by those who are not) because "her portrayal speaks to some universal understanding of rabbity behaviour." She describes the tale as a "perfect marriage of word and image" and "a triumph of fantasy and fact".

Literary scholar, researcher, and critic Carole Scott in her essay “An Unusual Hero: Perspective and Point of View in The Tale of Peter Rabbit” (2002) views Potter's tale as a straight-forward, archetypal naughty boy story with an appropriate moral at tale's end, but points out that Potter employed techniques to manipulate the reader into identifying with a hero who flouts adult wisdom, who causes his mother anxiety and grief by disobeying her, who commits trespass and theft, who evades paternalistic authority (Mr. McGregor), and who escapes all punishment save a passing stomach-ache as the result of his greediness. She points out that the major conflict in the tale is between the fixed order of society and the forces that seek to undermine it, between those who have and those who want, and between human civilization and animal nature. Peter, she states, symbolizes “rebellion on all fronts.”

Scott observes that the illustrations in The Tale of Peter Rabbit establish a sense of freedom with their irregular forms, variability in their shapes, their lack of borders and frames, and the degree of contextual detail they provide. The picture of Peter in the wheelbarrow she points out, is a rough rectangle with foreground, middle, and distant perspectives while the illustration of Peter jumping into the watering can lacks background and contextual setting. In the illustration of Mr. McGregor chasing Peter with a rake, the relationship between the two characters is established in spatial terms but provides no contextual detail. The continual shift of perspective, scope, and setting in the illustrations creates a fluctuating rather than a fixed viewpoint and is reflected in pages of full text and pages with but a few words.

The reader cannot help but identify with rebellious little Peter and his plight as all the illustrations are presented from his low-to-the-ground view, most feature Peter in close-up and within touching distance, and Mr. McGregor is distanced from the reader by always being depicted on the far side of Peter. This identification with Peter heightens the reader's fear and tension, and interacts with the frequently distanced voice of the verbal narrative, sometimes with contradictory effects. In the verbal narrative and the illustration for the moment when Mr. McGregor attempts to trap Peter under a garden sieve, for example, the verbal narrative presents the murderous intent of Mr. McGregor as a matter-of-fact, everyday occurrence while the illustration presents the desperate moment from the terrified view of a small animal about to die—a view that is reinforced by the birds that take flight to the left and the right, and Mr. McGregor's large, powerful, death-dealing hands.

Potter is inconsistent in the use of contradictory effects in the word-picture interaction. For example, in the illustration of Peter standing by the locked door, the verbal narrative describes the scene without the flippancy evident in the moment of the sieve. Disempowerment and the inability to overcome obstacles is presented in the verbal narrative with objective matter-of-factness and the statement, “Peter began to cry” is offered without irony or attitude, thus drawing the reader closer to Peter’s emotions and plight. The illustration depicts an unclothed Peter standing upright against the door, one foot upon the other with a tear running from his eye. Without his clothes, Peter is only a small, wild animal but his tears, his emotions, and his human posture intensifies the reader’s identification with him. Here, verbal narrative and illustration work in harmony rather than in disharmony.

Scott concludes her essay by noting Potter subverts not only her age’s expectations of what it takes to be a good child but subverts the hero genre with its young, objective, rational, resourceful white male who leaves the civilized world to brave obstacles and opponents in the wilderness, and, once his goal is achieved, returns home to grateful welcome and rewards. Peter is quite unlike the traditional hero; he is small, emotionally driven, easily frightened, and a not very rational animal. She suggests Potter’s tale has encouraged many generations of children to “self-indulgence, disobedience, transgression of social boundaries and ethics, and assertion of their wild, unpredictable nature against the constrictions of civilized living.”

Adaptation

An animated adaptation of the story, shown alongside The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, was featured in the television series The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends in 1992.

References

Notes

1. The frontispiece depicted Mrs. Rabbit dosing Peter with camomile tea after his terrific adventure.
2. Some characters in the book make appearances in other Potter titles. Peter, Mr. McGregor, and the cat return in The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904), and some characters appear in the artwork for The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905) and The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (1909). Peter and his sisters are adult rabbits in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (1909), and Flopsy's children are kidnapped in The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912).

Footnotes

1. ^ Mackey 2002, p. 33
2. ^ Mackey 2002, p. 34
3. Mackey 2002, p. 35
4. Lear 2007, p. 131
5. ^ Lear 2007, p. 142
6. Lear 2007, p. 143
7. Lear 2007, pp. 143–144
8. Lear 2007, p. 145
9. Lear 2007, pp. 145–146
10. ^ Lear 2007, p. 146
11. Lear 2007, p. 147
12. Lear 2007, p. 150
13. ^ Lear 2007, p. 149
14. Lear 2007, p. 148
15. Lear 2007, p. 152
16. Lear 2007, p. 164
17. Waller 2006, p. 343
18. ^ Mackey 1998, pp. xxi–xxii
19. Ross 1996, p. 210
20. Lear 2007, p. 153
21. Lear 2007, p. 154-155
22. Mackey 2002, p. 19
23. Mackey 2002, p. 20
24. Mackey 2002, p. 23
25. Mackey 2002, p. 27
26. Mackey 2002, p. 21
27. Mackey 2002, p. 22
28. Mackey 2002, pp. 22–23
29. Mackey 2002, p. 26
30. Mackey 2002, p. 28-29
31. Mackey 2002, p. 28
32. Mackey 2002, p. 29

Bibliography

• Lear, Linda (2007), Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN 978-0-312-36934-7
• Mackey, Margaret (2002), Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit: A Children's Classic at 100, Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., ISBN 0-88108-4197-5 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Mackey, Margaret (1998), The Case of Peter Rabbit, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-8153-3094-4
• Ross, Ramon Royal (1996), Storyteller: The Classic That Heralded America's Storytelling Revival, August House, ISBN 978-0874834512
• Waller, Philip (2006), Writers, Readers, and Reputations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-820677-1

External links

• World of Peter Rabbit: A website maintained by Potter's first publisher Frederick Warne & Co.
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit at Project Gutenberg
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit Audio Book at Project Gutenberg
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit Digital Book at the The University of Iowa Libraries (Flash)

• 1902 books
• Books by Beatrix Potter
• Children's picture books
• English literature
• Fictional hares and rabbits