Ref
“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.”
Beatrix Potter was a celebrated English writer and illustrator, most popularly known for her books ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ and ‘23 Tales’. From a young age, Potter spent her days lazing around the countryside, cherishing nature and landscapes, all of which would eventually go on to serve as huge inspirations in most of her writings. As a teenager, she began writing a diary, and these ramblings were largely random with minute observations revolving around society, nature, art, and life. All of this journaling manifested into an artistic voice with time, which further resulted in an illustrious literary body of work.
Potter’s writings constituted recurring countryside settings, with simpler lives, fun and vibrant animal archetypes, and illustrations with original vivid imagery.
Potter was ahead of her time. What we today call merchandise and mascot ideas of an IP, the thought of it took shape long back for the very first time in 1903 when Potter created a Peter Rabbit toy based on ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’. “My dear Noel, I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.” And thus began the saga thereafter. Potter often wrote letters to all her close ones. And her flair for writing kept shaping up. Journaling, letter writing, and eventually simply living a life that would inspire her to write and continue writing for ages. The tagged-along moral compass of Peter’s world very subtly informs young readers that the actions and the consequences are interlinked.
‘The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin’, ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’, ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’, ‘The Tale of two bad mice’, ‘The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle’, ‘The Tale of the Pie and the patty pan’, ‘The tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher’, ‘The story of a fierce bad rabbit’, ‘The story of Miss Moppet’, ‘The tale of tom kitten’, ‘The tale of Timmy tiptoes’, ‘The tale of Mr. Tod’, ‘Appley Dapply’s nursery rhymes’, ‘Cecily Parsley’s nursery rhymes’; Potter wrote and wrote, and never looked back. Her books were republished, translated, and sold hundreds of millions of copies. And she continued to write and illustrate her work for as long as she could.
“I remember every stone, every tree, the scent of heather. Even when the thunder growled in the distance, and the wind swept up the valley in fitful gusts, oh, it was beautiful, home sweet home.”
If you just look around and spend a decent amount of time amidst nature, stories will be born out of the mere act of observing and being mindful. Potter did it in the 1800s. We have to do it in the 21st century too. Writing and art at large are profound and immortal. It stems out of anything and everything and gets innocently passed on across hundreds of years.
Home sweet home – the one that Miss Potter built for us all, is still intact and will continue to be so.
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