Public reader discussion about The Tale of Peter Rabbit in the WeRead Catalog by Beatrix Potter.
By tea_reads
Hey, I’m kind of new here. Does anyone happen to have a physical copy of the first version of *The Tale of Peter Rabbit* from 1901? I’m doing a presentation for uni and I can’t track down a copy anywhere. I mainly just need photos of the whole book so I can analyze that specific edition. Sorry if this isn’t the right place to ask, but it’s kind of my last resort and I honestly don’t know where else to look.
By lazy_deer1991
I really want the photo to be legit, but it looks *too* good, so it’s making me wonder if it’s AI. Does anyone know where it came from or have a link to the source?
By bottle
I swear my whole life I’ve had random bits of this movie stuck in my head, and at times I was like… maybe I just imagined it when I was little? Like maybe it was some weird fever dream. I kept remembering this kitten getting rolled up in dough by rats, like it was going to be eaten, and I always thought that was so messed up. But then I actually found the movie, and wow—it's way creepier than I remembered. If you’ve got like 20 minutes, you can watch it here.
By BookishReads
Now that our kid’s a toddler, I’ve learned pretty fast that everyone’s just going to say Beatrice no matter how clearly I try to say the “x” when we introduce her. I feel kind of awkward jumping straight to “Beatrix with an x,” but it’s starting to bother me enough that I might just start doing it. It also seems like some people genuinely don’t register that it’s a real name, and they go “oh, that’s nice,” like they’re being polite. And yeah, I know names are basically made up, but I can tell they assume it’s one of those super random “Neveah”-style mashups. And I swear an alarming number of people have hit me with “wait, like the lady from Harry Potter? that’s amazing,” and I have to correct them like, no—she’s not named after that. I don’t know, I’m kind of at my limit and I just want some honest reactions at this point.
By black_bee1987
I kind of stumbled on her name while I was reading a page about C. S. Lewis (the friend of Tolkien who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia). It had this whole bit about how as a kid he was obsessed with talking/animal stories—he loved Beatrix Potter and apparently wrote and drew his own animal stuff too, like Boxen with Warnie, and just basically grew up surrounded by books. I’m pretty sure J.K. Rowling must’ve known about all that. Also, I just noticed that the director for the first Harry Potter movie was Chris Columbus? That’s kind of cool! Not sure I would’ve guessed.
By notebook_night1998
Yep, this is the jacket I cut and sewed for Peter—helped along by a few mice—and it showed up in the Peter Rabbit movies. It’s kind of a British version of that French peasant moleskin/chore jacket vibe. Since Peter’s dad originally owned it, I kinda wore it down on purpose (pumice in the shower), got it dirty with grass and soil, pulled some threads and re-stitched it so it looked more beat-up, and even polished the buttons up 🦔 If you want more brand-new Peter Rabbit stuff, check out mimlacode.com.
By Crimson_Saddle3913
I’d really recommend Miss Potter with Renee Zellwegger—it was surprisingly good.
By annotationcrescent
I tried reading these to my kids when they were little, because I remember my mom reading them to me and really liking them. But mine just didn’t seem to click at all. It was like they didn’t “get it” the way I did. Maybe it’s one of those generational things. In the end I just donated the books.
By DeltaPaper
Beatrix Potter was already drawing mushrooms back in the 1880s, but she didn’t really know the science side of it yet. Then she started writing to Charles McIntosh, who knew loads about ferns, mosses and fungi. She’d actually known him from holidays in Perthshire when she was a kid. In 1892, when she was 26, she arranged to meet him properly in Dunkeld and show him her drawings. Even though he was shy, he got really animated talking about fungi and went on about their “poetical” colours. After that they kept writing to each other. He sent her mushroom samples he’d found, and she sent him copies of her drawings in return. At first she described them by what they looked like, like “spluttered candle,” or even by smell, like “exactly like a dead sheep,” but she soon learned a lot more. McIntosh told her to make her drawings more scientific instead of just drawing them as she found them in the ground. As she got better at it, she and McIntosh started trading ideas about mushroom reproduction. She got really interested in agarics and began experimenting with how they germinated. By 1896 she had her own theory about how fungi spores reproduced and wrote a paper called “On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae.” She showed this to William Thistleton-Dyer, who was director of Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens. In her version of the meeting in December 1896, he came across as pretty dismissive and patronising. “I informed him that it would be in all the books in ten years, whether or no, and departed giggling,” she said. After that she presented it to the Linnaean Society in London on 1 April 1897. That place was basically the heart of Victorian botany, but it was only for men and women weren’t allowed to join, use the research library, or even sit in on the talks. It didn’t take in its first female fellow until 1905, and since only fellows could attend meetings, Potter wasn’t there when her paper was discussed. She later said it was “well received,” but the members thought it needed more work. She pulled the paper back, probably to revise it. But it was never actually published. There isn’t a copy left now. Our Knights of Castle Wood Tale keeps Beatrix’s interest in the natural world going. Bioluminescent mushrooms like Mycena, Armillaria and Panellus lead us through our tunnels linking all her Tales across Britain to the woods behind Hill Top farm. And then back through time too, so we can visit our mice friends in The Tailor of Gloucester 🦔 Beatrix’s legacy follow the green shield https://www.mimlacode.com/copy-of-felt-characters
By SamLovesBooks
This seriously makes my heart feel so warm! It’s just so beautiful 💕💕
By memoryPlanet47
I wasn’t really a huge fan beforehand, but we checked out the World of Beatrix Potter in the Lake District right before everything shut down with Covid, and I honestly liked it quite a bit.