Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) - photo 1
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) - photo 2
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) - photo 3
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) - photo 4

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

Starting price
£ 1 200
Auction dateClassic
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 470314
Lot 54 | Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

Letter to J.H. Mott. 5 January 1908

POTTER, Beatrix (1866-1905). Autograph letter signed ('Beatrix Potter') to J.H. Mott, 2 Bolton Gardens, London, 5 January 1908.



Four pages, 151 x 98mm, bifolium. Envelope, addressed to Mott at the Royal Doulton Potteries in Lambeth. Provenance: by descent from the recipient.



'Indeed I sympathize with parents who are involved in a system of purchasing & perusing those awful rabbit books!'. Potter opens by apologising that the winter weather has prevented her from visiting the Doulton factory, and mentions in passing her interest in stone ware, 'for my farm-yard'. She goes on to discuss the production of merchandising in relation to her children's books, including by 'a German firm who have turned out something so ugly in the way of a tea set. Mr Warne wants to stop it, but I cannot say off hand to what extent we are tied'. She has discussed with the Doulton artist Katherine Smallfield some 'clay statuettes that I made & coloured, I don't suppose in their existing form that they would be easy to cast (too many holes) but I think it would be worth while to show them to you; they are lifelike & comical'. Potter concludes in a spirit of comic irony by making fun of the immense success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904): 'Indeed I sympathize with parents who are involved in a system of purchasing & perusing those awful rabbit books! I heard the other day of a harmless elderly gardener who said he could not understand why two sets of children insisted on addressing him as Mr McGregor when his name was Jones. / I regret to say there are further rabbit adventures, but they will be withheld for a time as I am at present drawing ducks'.



Beatrix Potter, through her publisher, Frederick Warne, was one of the first authors to pursue merchandising related to her books: a soft toy incarnation of Peter Rabbit was patented as early as 1903. The 'further rabbit adventures' referred to appeared as The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, published in 1909. The 'ducks' feature in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908), which was composed at Hill Top, the Lake District farm she had bought in 1905.

Place of origin:Northern Europe
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