August 2008

HILL TOP SHOP ONLINE!  www.hilltopshop.co.uk

From early childhood, Beatrix Potter was fascinated by Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes and limericks. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’ was a particular favourite. She copied it in several letters to children, interpreting Lear’s words in her unique illustrative style. Like Lear, she understood children’s delight in the sounds and meanings of words. Her language is similarly rhymic and precise, and she, too, invented words and experimented with the limerick form. Both Potter and Lear often wrote with a particular child in mind. She remarked that the secret to the success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit was that it was addressed to ‘a real live child … not made to order’. Lear conceived his nonsense rhyme of the owl and the pussy-cat as a ‘picture poem’ for Janet Symonds, the daughter of his friend John Addington Symonds. Four days earlier, Lear had noted in his diary, ‘Their little girl is unwell – & all is sad’.The two writers also both suffered periods of debilitating sickness, isolation and depression. Potter believed she was ‘born to be a discredit’ to her parents. Lear felt excluded by his epilepsy. He despised social propriety and yearned to ‘giggleheartily and to hop on one leg’. To escape the constraints of polite society, they indulged their imaginations and revelled in rebellion and excess. Lear’s ‘old men’ are impulsive and indulgent; Peter Rabbit sheds his jacket and shoes and gorges on lettuces and broad beans.

Peter Rabbit is coming to Rosemoor!

Beatrix Potter Exhibition 24 May – 25 August 2008

Rosemoor Garden is delighted to be showing this exhibition, which includes 18 original paintings, six original black ink images and various photographs. The photographs being displayed have been specially selected for Rosemoor, and are based on the theme of plants and gardens – they include pictures of Beatrix Potter’s home in the Lake District, her childhood and her family.

The exhibition will also include interesting and innovative information on Beatrix Potter’s life. Although she died in 1943, she is still one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved children’s authors, having written a total of 28 books. However, the well loved Miss Potter had other significant talents as well, being a gifted natural scientist and botanical illustrator and an enthusiastic farmer, sheep-breeder and conservationist!

So if you are a fan of Beatrix Potter, come along to Rosemoor to experience a magical collection of pictures centred around her life and work. Rosemoor is a unique place to which people return time and again for ideas, inspiration or simply to enjoy a marvellous day out. From Lady Anne ’s original garden to the Rose Garden’s (with over 2000 roses), the Fruit and Vegetable Garden, the Arboretum, Lake and Bog Garden, there is something for everyone to enjoy. Rosemoor’s Gift Shop has a wide range of Beatrix Potter merchandise.

For more information contact  01805 624067 or email joannarowe@rhs.org.uk   www.rhs.org.uk

Beyond This Time and Place: Children’s Books in England

Free Library of Philadelphia
Rare Book Department, Central Library, 1901 Vine Street
215.686.5416                 www.freelibrary.org

April 14 - September 12, 2008   9 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday to Friday 
Tours of the Department at 11 a.m.

Drawing on the Rare Book Department’s extensive collection of early children’s books, this exhibition offers a charming variety of recreational and instructional English children’s books from 1701 to the 1930s. While the exhibition has only one case devoted to Beatrix Potter, it provides an excellent overview of English children’s literature prior to and during her life.

Original Artwork by Kate Greenway for Queen of the Pirate Isle by Bret Hart

BOOKS BY SOCIETY MEMBERS

NEW TITLE
Walking with Beatrix Potter

Norman Buckley, June Buckley

This book brings together three worlds: the Edwardian Lakes seen in sepia photographs; the imaginative world of the Potter books with their unsurpassed illustrations; and the Lakes of today in good contemporary pictures.

For many visitors, especially young ones, Beatrix Potter is the most interesting of the many Lake District writers, and the fact that so many of her stories have clear Lake District locations is here used as the basis for this series of short easy walks. It is possible to follow the adventures of Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tiggy Winkle,  Peter Rabbit and many others, actually walking in their footsteps and visiting their lakes and rivers, houses and gardens.

Fifteen walks in the Lake District, all suitable for the young (as well as for the comparatively old) and all with direct connections either to Beatrix Potter's stories or to her life as a farmer and conservationist, are presented with maps, illustrations and easy to follow directions that include parking and refreshment suggestions, and of course full details of the particular interest and relationship that each walk has to the work of one of the world's best loved story tellers.

Norman and June Buckley are professional writers, and the authors of numerous guide books and walking books. They live in Windermere, and are long standing members of the Beatrix Potter Society.