Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: The plants and places that inspired the classic children’s tales by Marta McDowell Reviewed!

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (November 5, 2013)

 BOOK DESCRIPTION

This book serves as a traveler’s guide to help you discover or rediscover Beatrix Potter’s Lake District, her garden at Hill Top Farm, and the many other gardens and landscapes that nourished her imagination.

You’re invited to follow Beatrix Potter through a year in her gardens, learning what she was growing in each season—pansies and peas, foxgloves and pinks, roses and currants, and all the other old-fashioned cottage plants that fill her drawings.

In this engagingly written and delightfully illustrated book, Marta McDowell takes you on a personal journey, tracing the development and eventual blossoming of Beatrix Potter’s life as a gardener, from her childhood interest in plants, through her development as an artist to her final years as an estate farmer and naturalist.

 Photograph of Beatrix Potter drawing at Derwentwater, 1903, Cotsen Children's Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, Library

 ‘Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life’ is divided into three parts:

Part one reads as Beatrix Potter’s gardener’s biography if she had kept one! Childhood homes and gardens at such places  as: Dalguise House in Scotland and Wray Castle. The influence of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, served as a major life influence as a naturalist and author. 

Part Two covers a year in Beatrix Potter’s gardens from Castle Cottage, where she lived with her husband to Hill Top Farm her home which is now a museum in Cumbria, Lake District, England. 

Part Three reads like a road map of sorts providing detailed information about the favorite gardens throughout London she and her brother, Bertram enjoyed and what you will find there today. For instance, Bolton Gardens, the gardens at Camfield Place in Hertfordshire as well as Hatfield House and of course all roads lead back to the Lake District. 

 What I enjoyed about ‘Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life,’ is how the author included real locations and settings of Potter’s beloved books and how her love of nature and gardening influenced them. For instance, in part one the reader will discover how for Peter Rabbit Potter drew garden settings from various holiday homes, “If (Mr. McGregor’s) vegetable garden and wicket gate were anywhere it was at Lingholm near Keswick, but it would be vain to look for it there, as affirm of landscape gardeners did away with it, and laid it out anew with paved walks.” (Beatrix Potter) Beatrix spent ten summers there with her family so she knew Lingholm well. Lingholm’s walled kitchen garden segregated the members of the plant family from the ornamental flowerbeds.

In 1905, Beatrix was briefly engaged to her publisher Norman Warne. He died unexpectedly that year and she fled to Gwaynynog in North Wales to the home of widowed Uncle Burton. While there, she worked on the proofs of ‘Tiggy-Winkle’ and wrote to Norman’s siblings. She structured a book about a frog named Jeremy Fisher, with drawing s of forget-me-nots and water lilies. She loved sketching in the garden because it was good therapy. In a letter to one of Norman’s relatives she says, “I know some people don’t like frogs! But I think I had convinced Norman that I could make it a really pretty book with a good many flowers & water plants.” 

 

Indeed Gwaynynog had a large garden that she had described years earlier, “two-thirds surrounded by a red-brick wall with many apricots, and an inner circle of old grey apple trees on wooden espaliers. It is very productive but not tidy, the prettiest kind of garden, where bright, old fashioned flowers grow amongst the currant bushes.”  The gardens at Gwaynynog later became the setting for The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, published in 1909. 

Much of Part Two revolves around the gardens, flowers, plants, etc., on the grounds of both Castle Cottage and Hill Top on the slope between the two properties called Post Office Meadow. Potter’s watercolors are found herein as well as photographs of Potter with her animals at Hill Top. For instance, these gardens played the setting in such books as “Peter Rabbit’s Almanac for 1929,” “The Tale of Johnny Town Mouse,” and “The Tale of Tom Kitten.”

 

 Beatrix Potter, 'Garden in Sawrey', 1905, pen-and-ink and watercolour. Linder Bequest: , © Frederick Warne & Co. 2012 

Part Three takes you back to Potter’s childhood influences again and back to her later years living at Hill Top after the death of her husband and into old age. An elder Potter looks back on her accomplishments, how her life changed and how her love for the Lake District carried so heavily into her works.  

 Beatrix Potter at a garden gate at age 5 in 1871. The Beatrix Potter Society.

 I highly recommend, ‘Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life’ by Marta McDowell to anyone wanting to learn more about Beatrix Potter the naturalist and how nature influenced her entire life and her various careers. It is beautifully written and illustrated with family photographs and Potter’s watercolors. Everything ties into her beloved books and what a debt we owe to Beatrix Potter. 

NOTE:  At the end of this book you will find some wonderful references that Marta McDowell provides including Notes and Further Reading list and a photography and illustration sources and credits list.

Beatrix Potter: The Picture Letters at The Morgan Library & Museum November 2, 2012-January 27, 2013

Beatrix Potter with Benjamin Bouncer, September 1891 Cotsen Children’s Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library Photography: Princeton University Library

I thought I would bring this exhibit to you, my dear readers and friends. So, here are the contents of the exhibit containing two of Beatrix Potter's letters written to children she knew 1892-1905. Also included some of her watercolors, illustrations, photographs, etc. 

On display for the first time are twenty-two letters from the Morgan, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University. Also you will find the Potter family photo albums sadly under glass. I would have loved to been able to hold them in my hands and just look over every black and white photograph. There was a board game as well. I had no idea one existed!

As a life long reader and admirer of Beatrix Potter visiting this exhibit felt like visiting old family friends; though long since gone never truly far away! I first met Peter Rabbit at the age of three and we've been fast friends ever since! For you, dear reader, will be able to meet the 'pioneer' illustrator and writer of the Victorian era, Helen Beatrix Potter, you will get a glimpse into one aspect of her writing life through her own words, illustrations and her treasured children's books.

So, for those who could not make it to Gotham to see the exhibit, come along with me and I hope you enjoy yourself!

 Bertram Potter, Annie Carter (later Mrs. Moore) and Beatrix Potter with Spot, 1883 Cotsen Children’s Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library Photography: Princeton University Library.

 Beatrix Potter with Her Pet Mouse Xarifa, 1885. Cotsen Children’s Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library Photography: Princeton University Library.

 
SURVIVING LETTERS FROM BEATRIX POTTER

 Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Autograph letter to Noel Moore, February 4, 1895; p. 2 and 3 The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. MA 2009.2 Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959

 

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) Autograph letter to Noel :Moore, March 11, 1892; p. 2 and 3  The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959.

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) Autograph letter to Noel :Moore, March 11, 1892; p. 1 and 4 The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. 

Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959.

 Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) Autograph letter to Eric Moore, August 21, 1892 Cotsen Children's Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library. 

 Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) Both illustrations from an autograph letter to Molly Gaddum, October 11, 1895 Cotsen Children's Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library.

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Autograph letter to Noel Moore, March 4, 1897; pages 2 and 3 The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. MA 2009.10 Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959 

  Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Autograph letter to Marjory Moore, March 13, 1900; p. 2 and 3. The Morgan Library and Museum 2009

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Autograph letter to Margaret Hough, February 22, 1905 Cotsen Children's Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library.

 Beatrix Potter watercolor she did Fawe Park Garden, 1903, Private Collection

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Cinderella’s Coach with Rabbits. 1899 Pen and ink and wash Private Collection 

This was a major exhibit and these items above are just the highlighted ones. This is turning into a very long post, so I think I will leave it there.

 

Beatrix Potter with her dog 

Feel free to leave comments,

A Review of Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature By Linda Lear

Book Synopsis
Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), creator of the immortal Peter Rabbit, is known as an avid writer of comical illustrated letters to friends and as an assertive marketer of her illustrations, and this lively volume also captures her energetic participation in Victorian-era natural history research and conservation. Environmental historian Lear (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature) relates that, as a child in an upper-middle-class family, Potter sketched flowers, dead animals and live lizards, insects and rodents that she brought home. "Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted" by young Beatrix and her brother, Bertram. In 1893, while traveling with her pet rabbit, Peter Piper, and seeking unusual fungi with self-taught mycologist Charles McIntosh, Potter jotted an illustrated note "about a disobedient young rabbit called 'Peter' " to an ailing child friend and sketched Peter's nemesis, a McIntosh–look-alike farmer called Mr. McGregor, creating "two fictional characters that one day would be world-famous." Lear judges Potter "a brilliant amateur" naturalist who expressed strong convictions about land preservation. Potter's witty journals, with their close observations of people, animals, objects and places, serve as the basis for Lear's engrossing account, which will appeal to ecologists, historians, child lit buffs and those who want to know the real Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Benjamin Bunny.

A PAGE OUT OF BEATRIX POTTER'S DIARY

For sixteen years Beatrix Potter kept a diary written in code and whose work dealt almost exclusively with the doings of small creatures whose fictional lives and homes were cunningly hidden in hedgerows, wainscots, woodlands, farmsteads and floorboards.

REMEMBRANCES OF THINGS PAST
One of my earliest memories is snuggling with my grandma at the age of three years old listening to her read this book that she says I repeatedly requested. If she did not, I would burst into tears. It was Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. I remember laughing at Mr. Mcgregor even though he clearly wanted to harm Peter Rabbit for sneaking into his garden and eating all the vegetables until he got sick! Even Mrs. Mcgregor wanted her husband to catch Peter so she could put him in a pie! This certainly never scared me. I just thought it was funny! This is partly because my grandma would explain to me that it is a story or a tale and Peter really wouldn't get eaten in a pie but you shouldn't be 'naughty' and 'misbehave'. Apparently, I was worried about the rabbits getting cooked! I won't say anything about what happened when my mother and I went to see Fatal Attraction, years later...

Peter Rabbit, his sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, and his mother are anthropomorphic rabbits who dress in human clothing and generally walk upright on their hind legs, though they live in a rabbit hole under a fir-tree. Mother Rabbit has forbidden her children to enter the garden of Mr. McGregor: it was there that their father met his untimely end and became the ingredient of a pie. However, while Mrs. Rabbit is shopping and the girls are collecting blackberries, Peter sneaks into the garden. There, he gorges on vegetables until he gets sick, and is then 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. In a 1904 sequel, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, Peter returns to McGregor's garden to retrieve his lost clothes...The scene when Peter and Benjamin fall down a hole in the ground while Peter is carrying a sack full of 'those beastly onions' still makes me giggle until my stomachaches

ON TO MY THOUGHTS ABOUT BEATRIX POTTER: A LIFE IN NATURE
While biographer Linda Lear gives Beatrix Potter's life its full due, she's also aware that there were only five years out of 77 in a life lived productively and to the full. Lear is an environmental historian, and while she is an enthusiastic if uncritical appreciator of Potter's books for children and unabashedly writes of Potter in her private and her public life, her main interest is in Potter's aptitude and skill for science and natural history and the way it transformed her in her later years into an expert in land management and sustainable farming.

Partly through her books and partly through inheritance, Beatrix Potter Heelis was in her later years a very wealthy woman, and she became one of the largest landholders in the Lake District. Most of this land she managed and preserved with Britain's National Trust. Through what Lear calls "her passionate and imaginative stewardship of the land", she "created a singular moment in the recovery of nature in the 20th century: a paradigm of environmental awakening".

However, there are some long and impressive stretches that concentrate on Potter's life as a scientist and an artist, for the two were not separable in her work. Before the era of Peter Rabbit, Potter was already a trained artist, a skilled photographer and a gifted amateur naturalist, prolific and photographically accurate in her botanical drawings and profoundly knowledgeable about fungi.

For her biographer, the turning point in Potter's life was the late summer of 1893, when she was 27: "On 4 September, the very day after discovering and drawing the rare pine cone fungus, Beatrix sat down in the sunshine and wrote a picture letter about a disobedient young rabbit called Peter." The picture letter was to the older son of a former governess; fearing that his younger brother might feel left out, she then wrote one for him as well, about a frog called Jeremy Fisher: "In the space of two days she had found and painted a rare and important mycological specimen and created two fictional characters that one day would be world famous." In her picture letters to the various children she knew, Potter honed her storytelling skills; she experimented in them, says Lear, "with the intricacies of matching drawing to text, and with the structural elements of storytelling: they served as the medium for Potter's artistic transition between natural science and fantasy". She had considerable training as a child and teenager in drawing and painting, including some handy tips from her father's friend John Everett Millais, the most gifted of the Pre-Raphaelites.

There seems to have existed in Potter's parents a tendency to be repressive and controlling on the one hand, and generous and tolerant about Potter's love of drawing and of plants and animals on the other. As children, Beatrix and her younger brother Bertram had a permanent zoo in the family home, which seems to have been full of animals brought home - often smuggled - from country holidays.

The sense of Potter as a real, compelling artist in this book is very strong. At just 18 she wrote in her journal: "I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have had a bad time come over me, it is a stronger desire than ever." At the other end of her life, now a north country farmer and sheep-breeder, she asked her manager to take up the next lamb that died, cut off its head and "skin it back to the shoulder". He did as asked, and the following day "he came to find the sheep's head pinned against a wall in the meadow and Beatrix sitting on a stone sketching it".

The great achievement of this book is the way it brings together Beatrix Potter's lifelong activities in art and science and shows how they are all part of an extraordinarily integrated life: how her feeling for plants and animals and her finely detailed observations of the natural world were the foundation stones of her children's books as well as her land management skills and environmental awareness. In the last year of her life, she wrote to her cousin Caroline: "As I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough lands, seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton grass where my old legs will never take me again.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions,