Beatrix Potter: The extraordinary life of a Victorian genius [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If you have fond memories of the Tale of Peter Rabbit from your childhood; or if you have an interest in women who bravely challenged a social destiny that seemed foregone and inevitable; or if you are interested in naturalism and the history of preservation, you will enjoy and learn from Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, by environmental historian Linda Lear.

Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866 to wealthy Victorian parents. From early childhood, she was passionately interested in the natural world and drew what she saw in meticulous, painstaking detail, using as models the many animals that she and her brother collected during family holidays. These animal drawings became increasingly imaginative until they at last came to life in the delightful characters that populate The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck and other books, all of which became phenomenal bestsellers.

In 1905, after the death of her fiancé and editor, Norman Warne, Potter used the royalties from her books and a small inheritance from an aunt to purchase a farm in the hamlet of Near Sawrey, in the Lake District. There, she met Willie Heelis, a country lawyer who in 1913 became her husband, and together they set about fulfilling a dream they shared: preserving and protecting the Lake District from the despoliation of commercial development. They lived and worked happily together until 1943, when Beatrix Potter Heelis died.

Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature is the most exhaustive and rigorous examination of Potter's life to date. Linda Lear skillfully covers the material that's been been made available by earlier biographers, Margaret Lane and Judy Taylor: the solitary childhood, the astonishing literary success, the dutiful attention to elderly parents, the retirement to marriage and rural farming life. But Lear breaks a good deal of new ground, as well, taking us deep into the experience of a gifted but very private woman with a "talent for reinventing herself." She not only tells the riveting story of a woman who seems to have led three lives, but also fully and meticulously documents her sources. Scholars will appreciate the endnotes, sources, references, and lists of primary and secondary material that Lear has provided, for it is the first time in the history of Potter scholarship that such a full and complete documentation has been made.

However, Lear never allows her responsibilities as a scholar to overshadow her fascination with the human story of Beatrix Potter. With tact, sensitivity, and a profound respect, she goes deeply within her subject to bring us a woman whose tragedies and triumphs seem very personal, compellingly immediate, and entirely real. Lear demonstrates that throughout Potter's long life, her imagination was fueled by a passion for nature, whether this was expressed in drawings of rabbits in blue coats with brass buttons, or in paintings of fungi, lovingly rendered, or in her love for the tenacious Herdwick sheep that populated the hills of the Lake District, or in her profound admiration for the traditional Lakeland lifeways of farmers and artisans. Within the larger context of environmental history that this biography provides, it is easy to see why and how Beatrix Potter became one of England's most important preservationists and greatest benefactors, leaving some 4,300 acres, including 15 farms, dozens of cottages, houses, and over 500 acres of woods to the National Trust. It was a magnificent gift, a model for gifts to come, and still, to this day, unique.

As is this biography. If you've enjoyed Beatrix Potter's "little books" or the movie, Miss Potter, you will want to read it.

Susan Wittig Albert is the author of The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter: The Tale of Hill Top Farm, The Tale of Holly How, The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood, The Tale of Hawthorn House, and four other forthcoming novels in the series. This review is excerpted from a longer review published on the website of the Story Circle Network.

This is the book we've been waiting for: the definitive chronicle of Beatrix Potter's life. Here we read -- with pleasure -- the details of her life, revealed many times in her own words in letters to friends, relatives, and publishing business associates. The woman who created the tale of Peter Rabbit in an illustrated letter to a favorite child was much more than a children's book author. She grew into a headstrong, independent woman who became a sheep farmer and who fell in love with England's Lake District and helped to save thousands of acres of it in conjunction with the National Trust. Hers is a miraculous story that should be shared, especially with teens who are feeling stifled by controlling parents. This is the sort of book that you almost don't want to finish because you don't want the visit to be over. We are just now realizing what an interesting person Beatrix Potter Heelis was! Thank you, Ms. Lear!

Beatrix Potter led a far more interesting life that I could have imagined. Raised as a proper young lady, she was assigned by her parents as the manager of their household. She was in charge of the servants and responsible to be sure that everything was done properly and well.

So while she was doing this, she studied (by herself of course, who would let a girl go to school) and became a rather reknown mycologist, making the breakthrough observation that lichens were a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. She was proposed to be a member of the student body at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. But, of course, as a mere female she was turned down.

So beginning to make some drawings, and writing a few stories she became the J.K. Rowling of her time when she published a book 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit.' She went on to publish another 22 books, and to create a merchandising empire about the characters.

Making yet another switch in later life, she became a gentleman farmer, raising prizewinning sheep and cattle.

Ms. Lear has not only done a splendid job in writing this book, she deserves our thanks.