Beatrix Potter, in full Helen Beatrix Potter, (born July 28, 1866, South Kensington, Middlesex [now in Greater London], England—died December 22, 1943, Sawrey, Lancashire [now in Cumbria]), English author of children’s books, who created Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and other animal characters.
Potter, the only daughter of heirs to cotton fortunes, spent a solitary childhood, enlivened by long holidays in Scotland or the English Lake District, which inspired her love of animals and stimulated her imaginative watercolour drawings. On one of these holidays in Scotland, at age 27, she sent an illustrated animal story to a sick child of a former governess, about four bunnies named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. The illustrated letter was so well received that she decided to privately publish it as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901). In 1902 it was published commercially with great success by Frederick Warne & Company, which in the next 20 years brought out 22 additional books, beginning with The Tailor of Gloucester (1903), The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903), and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904).
