Potter, Helen Beatrix

Potter, Helen Beatrix (1866-1943), author and artist, b. Kensington, London.

One day in 1893 a small boy named Noel Moore was ill and he received a letter from a lady he knew. The letter said: 'I don't know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.' The lady was Beatrix Potter and she not only wrote a story for Noel, she also made drawings to go with it.

Noel liked the story so much he kept it and eight years later Miss Potter borrowed it back. She made it into a book called The Tale of Peter Rabbit. This was published with colored pictures by Miss Potter in 1902.

Children loved the book and she wrote a second The Tailor of Gloucester (1903). Some people said this was better than the first.

Afterwards Miss Potter wrote many more books for children, including The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, and these are still popular today.

For much of her life, Miss Potter lived in Lancashire and the Lake District (north west England) - an area known for romantic poetry and thought-provoking scenery.

She married William Heelis in 1913. They lived on a farm and she helped him to run it. She left her farmhouse at Hill Top, Sawrey, Lancashire, to the National Trust and today it is kept as a Beatrix Potter Museum.

In 1971, a movie was produced called The Tales of Beatrix Potter.

In 2006 a biopic movie of Potter's life, Miss Potter, was released starring Renée Zellweger.