She almost certainly would have read Dorothy Kilner’s Life and Perambulations of a Mouse, published 1783. English writer Beatrix Potter walking her rabbit 1910s DOROTHY KILNERīut Potter herself was in turn influenced by all who came before. Potter is hugely influential in children’s book world, specifically for her animals dressed as humans. Now that animals in picture books are super common, it’s easy to forget that Beatrix Potter popularised a new kind of story. (Perhaps this partly explains the enduring popularity of Peter Rabbit merchandise given as modern baby gifts.) For links on the Pinkification of Everything, see here. Although Peter Rabbit’s sisters are all wearing pink shawls, it’s coincidental that it was only several decades later that the colour pink started to be associated with femininity, and blue with masculinity. This old story evinces attitudes you might expect to have evolved since this story was written, but which haven’t really, in popular children’s literature. It’s worth looking closely, too, at the gender attitudes reflected in this tale. Beatrix Potter was following a long tradition of storytelling when she wrote this one. A male hero goes out, has an adventure, faces death and then arrives home, changed. PROBLEMS WITH PETER RABBITĪs Marjery Hourihan points out in Deconstructing the Hero, Peter Rabbit is basically an Odyssean story.

The size of a children’s book contributes to the experience of reading. This story is therefore meant to be read as a bound copy, in its original small size, rather than as part of an anthologised collection, or online.įor more on that: The Size And Format Of Picturebooks. But bear in mind that Beatrix Potter was fussy about the size of her book and everything about the printing process. The entire story of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (1901)is free to read at Project Gutenberg.

The story of peter rabbit