Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, mycologist and conservationist. She was perhaps most historically famous and also perhaps best notable and most prominently remembered for having written up and also having published several classic children's storybooks with which are all about and mostly based loosely on the narrative tales of amongst several of her classic and most beloved animal characters such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Beatrix Potter in 1913

Potter was born on 28 July 1866 in England and she was then raised and eventually grew up in Kensington, London during the early childhood stages of her life. She was somehow and pretty well-off and her whole family was also quite rich and even became extremely wealthy overnight at the next and in between the period of time from directly onwards and just shortly at right after when her father Rupert William Potter, who had also great multi-artistic talents and was also an adept amateur photographer, had wisely invested a large part of their family income and hard-earned savings in the stock exchange market during the early 1890's. She was also surrounded as well as highly taught and intellectually educated by many governesses while throughout and during her growing teenage and adolescent years. Although, she did not have as many friends at while all throughout and at during in her entire lifetime period and longtime writing career, but she did rather was surrounded by the beautiful mother nature and on while on the contrary and also on the other hand, she otherwise had rather been surrounded up by many loving pets, including Benjamin and Peter, 2 favorite pet rabbits, the latter of which would be her prominent basis and much favorable namesake for her very first and most beloved storybook character mascot. She had also spent most of her happy holidays in Scotland and the Lake District. There, she eventually began to learn to love nature, plants and animals, by which she had also carefully sketched, artistically illustrated and creatively painted and also thus on became interested at painting and favorably loved to paint pictures of them.

By around the time when she was around at the age of 30 and from there onwards, Potter had then on written up and also then officially published her first original and classic children's storybook entitled The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It was a very widely popular classic children's story and had mostly universal appeal to lots of people of all ages, especially to amongst all young children. She also at one point on in the time of her life became romantically engaged to her then-publisher Norman Warne. Both of her parents unfortunately disapproved of this and thus so became very angry with her as they disputed over the love affair and thereby tumultuosly separated with her because of this as they really did not want her to marry someone who was socially lower than her. However, Warne had unexpectedly died just before he and Potter could even officially marry each other. Eventually, both of Potter's parents had then forgiven her and eventually reconciled with her, and thus she and her whole other family members had happily reunited together once again.

Potter then went and moved on with her life and also began on with prominently writing up and even creatively illustrating multiple classic children's storybooks along with many illustrative background designs and distinctive character sketches within the pages of her storybooks at over full-time. Fortunately, she did not have to depend on her parents anymore for any help and much support and did not even need to ask her parents for any more money because she already had enough self-earned money of her own from out of writing and publishing a lot of her prominent children's storybooks. In time, she then bought out Hill Top Farm and even purchased some more huge tracks of land. While then on at throughout and during much later in her 40's, she then married William Heelis, a local solicitor. She also began raising sheep and thus became a farmer, though she still continued on with writing her storybooks based on the epic tales of her several classic beloved animal characters. She has perhaps written and published over 23 classic children's storybooks to date during most of all the time of her life.

Potter eventually married William Heelis in 1913 and their marriage had lasted for about 30 years on until the time of her death in 1943. Although, the couple never had any children while living together on since during the years of their marriage. She had then on since suffered from a congenital heart problem and had died of a cardiovascular heart disease and pneumonia in Near Sawrey, Lancashire at the age of 77 on 22 December 1943. Almost all of her whole life-savings from within and out of her own entirely self-earned money from out of writing up her classic children's stories and publishing her books and all of the money by which she had also thus inherited on from the time of the death of her immediate family members including both of her parents and as well as her younger brother Walter Bertham Potter was entirely left behind with to the National Trust. Her popular classic children's storybooks continued to sell out well around the whole world, while published and stated in many different languages. Her then-widower, Heelis had also eventually died just shortly and right after her passing which was just nearly at in between 1 and 2 years later in sometime on and around August 1945.

Bibliography

• Lear, Linda (2008), Beatrix Potter: The Extraordinary Life of a Victorian Genius, Penguin Books, ISBN 9780141003108
• Lear, Linda (2006). Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713995602.

Other Websites

• Works by Beatrix Potter at Project Gutenberg
• "Online Books by Beatrix Potter". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
• Immersive Books Beatrix Potter Archived 2011-10-03 at the Wayback Machine