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"[A] careful, intelligent look at Potter's life. Potter kept a coded journal in her youth and thanks to these entries Lear is able to share some of Potter's own thoughts and feelings, at least in the early part of her life....[A]s an appreciation of a life well-lived and a talent almost accidentally nurtured, Beatrix Potter tells an absorbing story well worth reading." Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Peter Rabbit, Mr. McGregor, and many other Beatrix Potter characters remain in the hearts of millions. However, though Potter is a household name around the world, few know the woman behind the illustrations. Her personal life, including a romantic relationship with her publisher, Norman Warne, and her significant achievements outside of children's literature, remain largely unknown.
In Linda Lear's enchanting new biography, we get the life story of this incredible, funny, and independent woman. As one of the first female naturalists in the world, Potter brought the beauty and importance of nature back into the imagination at a time when plunder was more popular than preservation. Through her art she sought to encourage conservation and change the world.
With never before seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond our perrenial fascination with Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman — one whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
Review:
"Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), creator of the immortal Peter Rabbit, is known as an avid writer of comical illustrated letters to friends and as an assertive marketer of her illustrations, and this lively volume also captures her energetic participation in Victorian-era natural history research and conservation. Environmental historian Lear (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature) relates that, as a child in an upper-middle-class family, Potter sketched flowers, dead animals and live lizards, insects and rodents that she brought home. 'Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted' by young Beatrix and her brother, Bertram. In 1893, while traveling with her pet rabbit, Peter Piper, and seeking unusual fungi with self-taught mycologist Charles McIntosh, Potter jotted an illustrated note 'about a disobedient young rabbit called "Peter"' to an ailing child friend and sketched Peter's nemesis, a McIntosh–look-alike farmer called Mr. McGregor, creating 'two fictional characters that one day would be world-famous.' Lear judges Potter 'a brilliant amateur' naturalist who expressed strong convictions about land preservation. Potter's witty journals, with their close observations of people, animals, objects and places, serve as the basis for Lear's engrossing account, which will appeal to ecologists, historians, child lit buffs and those who want to know the real Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Benjamin Bunny. A movie, Miss Potter, also releases in January. 16 pages of color illus., 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Beatrix Potter (1866 — 1943), creator of the immortal Peter Rabbit, is known as an avid writer of comical illustrated letters to friends and as an assertive marketer of her illustrations, and this lively volume also captures her energetic participation in Victorian-era natural history research and conservation. Environmental historian Lear (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature) relates that, as a child in an upper-middle-class family, Potter sketched flowers, dead animals and live lizards, insects and rodents that she brought home. 'Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted' by young Beatrix and her brother, Bertram. In 1893, while traveling with her pet rabbit, Peter Piper, and seeking unusual fungi with self-taught mycologist Charles McIntosh, Potter jotted an illustrated note 'about a disobedient young rabbit called 'Peter' ' to an ailing child friend and sketched Peter's nemesis, a McIntosh — look-alike farmer called Mr. McGregor, creating 'two fictional characters that one day would be world-famous.' Lear judges Potter 'a brilliant amateur' naturalist who expressed strong convictions about land preservation. Potter's witty journals, with their close observations of people, animals, objects and places, serve as the basis for Lear's engrossing account, which will appeal to ecologists, historians, child lit buffs and those who want to know the real Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Benjamin Bunny. A movie, Miss Potter, also releases in January. 16 pages of color illus., 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Renee Zellweger plays a young Beatrix Potter in a recent biopic, putting a romantic spin on this relentlessly down-to-earth British author's life and work. But readers of Linda Lear's thorough new biography may more easily imagine a stout pragmatist such as Dame Margaret Rutherford in the role, sensibly shod as she pursues hedgehogs and mice across the English countryside. From the appearance of her... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) first book, 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit,' Potter created and helped sustain one of the most successful franchises in literature, successfully marketing not only children's books but toys, wallpaper, handkerchiefs, games, puzzles — a retail enterprise now worth $500 million. At her death in 1943, the elderly Mrs. Heelis, nee Potter, left an estate valued at today's equivalent of 7 million pounds — more than $13 million. Her influence on children's literature is almost incalculable and can be seen in works by Alison Utley, Margaret Wise Brown, Tasha Tudor, Robert Lawson and Margery Sharp, to name just a few. Not bad for an empire built on what her editors called 'the bunny book.' Yet Potter herself remains something of a mystery — not surprising, perhaps, for someone who for 16 years kept a diary written in code and whose work dealt almost exclusively with the doings of small creatures whose fictional lives and homes were cunningly hidden in hedgerows, wainscots, woodlands, farmsteads and floorboards. Born in 1866, she was the eldest of two children of a wealthy couple whose mercantile background, North Country accents and progressive Unitarian beliefs kept them from being fully assimilated within their genteel London circle. Potter's father had artistic leanings and connections; her mother was a lifelong snob. Potter's girlhood may not have been the stuff of Victorian melodrama. Still, she appears to have been a solitary soul, happiest roaming Camfield Place, her grandparents' country estate in Hertfordshire, or the grounds of Dalguise, the Scottish estate where her family summered for 10 years. Camfield's grounds were designed by the great 18th-century gardener Capability Brown; the vistas near Dalguise were painted by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, a family friend and frequent visitor. The memory of these landscapes — the quintessential pastoral English countryside, the more rugged forests — suffuses Potter's best-known work. So do the myriad animals she and her brother housed in their nursery, among them 'rabbits (Benjamin Bouncer and Peter), a green frog called Punch, several lizards ... water newts, a tortoise, ... salamanders, many and different varieties of mice, a ring snake, several bats, a canary and a green budgerigar, a wild duck, a family of snails, several guinea pigs and later a hedgehog or two.' Potter drew as a child and as a teenager took private art lessons. She later made her own illustrations for books she loved, including Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories, which featured clever Brer Rabbit. Her father's friend Millais encouraged her, saying: 'Plenty of people can draw, but you ... have observation.' She refined her skills with gorgeous, meticulously detailed watercolors of plant life (beautifully reprinted in this volume), in particular mushrooms and other fungi, for which she had an amateur's passion. A visit to an exhibition of Old Master paintings chastened the 16-year-old artist, but her customary practicality shone through. 'Was rather disheartened at first, but I have got over it,' she wrote in her journal. This sturdy, no-nonsense attitude is at the core of her best books, which belie Potter's undeserved reputation for winsome little nursery stories. As a budding naturalist, she collected insect specimens and other creatures, including rabbits, which were 'caught, tamed, sketched, painted. When the animals died, they were boiled and their skeletons preserved. The bones were then articulated, measured, drawn, labelled, and preserved.' Potter's dry-eyed view of the animal world is echoed in Mrs. Rabbit's offhand warning to her children: 'Don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.' 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' first saw light in 1893, as an illustrated letter to Noel Moore, the 4-year-old son of Potter's former governess: 'I don't know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits.' Years later, in 1899, Noel's mother suggested that Potter turn her picture letters into a children's book. Potter already had successfully marketed her drawings as Christmas cards and pamphlets, but publishers had rejected 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's Garden.' So, in a move that has brought hope to would-be authors ever since, in September 1901 Potter withdrew her savings and paid for a first printing of 250 copies of her book, with another 500 copies ordered and held in reserve. The cost of her venture into self-publishing: 11 pounds. 'The public must be fond of rabbits!' she marveled a year later; 'what an appalling quantity of Peter.' By 1903, there were 56,470 copies in print. Today, the book has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide in 35 languages. Lear tells Potter's story with painstaking, occasionally dogged, thoroughness. There was not a whiff of the bohemian in Potter's life. Feminists hoping for a martyr in the figure of a young girl clutching the bars of her nursery window will go away disappointed, and readers expecting to find romance or melodrama might be better-suited to the cinematic version; here Potter generates as much erotic heat as a pudding. It's telling that the two men she was involved with were her business partners. Potter's brief engagement to her editor, Norman Warne, ended when he died a month after he proposed. Seven years later, in 1913, she wed her loyal solicitor, William Heelis, to whom she remained happily married until her death at the age of 77. During the course of their lives together, Mr. and Mrs. Heelis bought and preserved thousands of acres of land in the Lake District, saving farms and woodland from developers. She ultimately bequeathed them to the National Trust, making her one of its largest benefactors. The woman who once said she 'had many mouse friends in my youth' ended up with legions of human ones as well, and had the farsightedness and generosity of spirit to ensure there would forever be a wild place where they could all coexist." Reviewed by Elizabeth Hand, whose 10th book, "Saffron & Brimstone: Strange Stories," has recently been published has recently been published, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Review:
"[A] meticulously researched and brilliantly re-created life that, despite its length and accretion of detail, is endlessly fascinating and often illuminating. It is altogether a remarkable achievement." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review:
"A stolid biography by environmental historian Lear that gets at the facts of Victorian Potter's life but does not bother addressing motivations and thwarted ambition." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Happily, Lear lavishes attention on the sources and back stories for Potter's drawings....The last few pages of Lear's book...are the most stirring. This legacy of natural beauty is as important as Potter's books and her biographer has every right to cheer it." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis:
With never-before-seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond the perennial fascination with Beatrix Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman. One 8-page b&w insert. Two 8-page color inserts.
Synopsis:
In this remarkable biography, Linda Lear offers a new look at the extraordinary woman who gave us some of the most beloved childrens books of all time. Potter found freedom from her conventional Victorian upbringing in the countryside. Nature inspired her imagination as an artist and scientific illustrator, but The Tale of Peter Rabbit brought her fame, financial success, and the promise of happiness when she fell in love with her editor Norman Warne. After his tragic and untimely death, Potter embraced a new life as the owner of Hill Top Farm in the English Lake District and a second chance at happiness. As a visionary landowner, successful farmer and sheep-breeder, she was able to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a lively, independent and passionate woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
Synopsis:
Peter Rabbit, Mr. McGregor, and many other Beatrix Potter characters remain in the hearts of millions. However, though Potter is a household name around the world, few know the woman behind the illustrations. Her personal life, including a romantic relationship with her publisher, Norman Warne, and her significant achievements outside of children's literature remain largely unknown. In Linda Lears enchanting new biography, we get the life story of this incredible, funny, and independent woman. As one of the first female naturalists in the world, Potter brought the beauty and importance of nature back into the imagination at a time when plunder was more popular than preservation. Through her art she sought to encourage conservation and change the world. With never before seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond our perrenial fascination with Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman--one whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
Linda Lear has always been intrigued by how the lives of artists and writers have been influenced in the natural world. She discovered quite by accident that before Beatrix Potter began her legendary series of "little books" for children she had been an avid student of natural history and might have had a career in science had such opportunities been available to women. As Lear explored Potter's evolution from amateur scientist to acclaimed author-illustrator and careful steward of the land, she herself became an admirer of Lakeland's farms, fells, and sheep. A professor of environmental history and the author of the prize-winning biography, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, Lear is an enthusiastic horticulturist and collector of botanical art. She and her husband live in Bethesda, Maryland.
Beatrix Potter created books that will forever conjure nature for millions. Yet though she is a household name around the world, her personal life and her other significant achievements remain largely unknown.
Potter's was, Linda Lear reveals, a life inspired and enriched by nature. Even as a child and a young woman, growing up in a wealthy, conventional London family, her imagination and artistic talent were fed by visits to the countryside. She found personal and financial freedom through nature, first as an artists and scientific illustrator, and then as the creator of the overnight bestseller Peter Rabbitwhich also revealed her to be a far-sighted marketer and merchandiser. It was the "little books" that led Beatrix to her first great love: her editor and publisher Norman Warne, who died tragically just a month after he proposed to her.
But Beatrix Potter was one of those rare individuals who is given a second chance at happiness. Her purchase of Hill Top Farm in the Lake District just after Warne's death led to her reinvention as a successful landowner and country farmer, and eventually to a happy marriage to William Heelis. She became a conservationist in order to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art, and, through the lands she bequeathed to the National Trust on her death, she saved whole areas of the Lake District for posterity.
At a time when plunder was more popular than preservation, she had brought nature back into the imagination. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a strong, humorous, and independent woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
"The matters on which Lear chooses to focus her work are so genuinely interesting . . . Indeed, Potter's biography comes close to being the opposite of a familiar writer's life. In the standard model, a ton of irrelevant detail adds hardly anything to our understanding of the writer's work and (usually) leaves us with a deep sense of her personal unsatisfactoriness. In Potter's case, it comes to seem that those extraliterary detailsthe years from 1911 to 1943were her real life, and the books were, to her, a kind of footnote. I am struggling to think of a writer who comes across as more humanly admirable than the energetic, blunt, determined, and always truthful Beatrix Potter."The New York Review of Books
“Lear, a former professor of environmental history and author of a well-regarded biography of Rachel Carson, brings a valuable new perspective to a much-debated life . . . Lear presents enough historical context and documentation to transform Potters life story from one of sad limitation to a roster of fine accomplishments, crowned with a happy thirty-three year marriage . . . Potters entire life is presented in as much detail as her last thirty happy years are, beginning with significant ancestors and their intellectual and financial heritage as well as the Unitarianism that curtailed the Potters social circle in London. Lears account of the shy young womans early botanical drawings and research is fascinating, not least for its revelation of character . . . Beatrix Potter covers the genesis of the childrens books with extensive reference to their actual settings, liking stories with the people, creatures, and events that inspired them and describing the books themselves with cogent appreciation . . . Beatrix herself is most generously revealed via Lears excellent descriptions and abundance of telling quotes . . . Lear seems to have consulted nearly all of the vast number of available primary sources with diligence and intelligence. Her book is splendidly documented: virtually every paragraph has its endnote, often with several citations. Lear is not only an impeccable historian but a grand storyteller, worthy of her subject; her writing is a pleasurea suitable companion to Potters own marvelously succinct and ironical style. Lears point of view as a naturalist is a prefect match for Potters own lifelong dedication to natural history and the preservation of land, landscape, and community . . . Altogether, this is a magisterial and definitive biography, a delight in every way.”Joanna Rudge Long, Horn Book
"As an appreciation of a life well-lived and a talent almost accidentally nurtured, Beatrix Potter, tells an absorbing story well worth reading."The Christian Science Monitor
"Lear paints an appealing, revealing picture of an independent, accomplished and loving woman who used her art and research to educate herself and a host of readers."BookPage
"The great achievement of this book is the way it knits together Potter's lifelong activities in art and science and shows how they are all part of an extraordinarily integrated life: how her feeling for plants and animals and her finely detailed observations of the natural world were the foundation stones of her children's books as well as her land management skills and environmental awareness."The Australian
"An in-depth biography of Beatrix Potter is long overdue and here Linda Lear fills that gap with a thoroughly well-researched and compelling book."Judy Taylor, author of Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman
"Potter was a famously close observer of the world around her, and Lear i
Linda Lear, a professor of environmental history and author of the prize-winning biography Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, is an enthusiastic horticulturalist and collector of botanical art. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature
New Hardcover
Linda Lear
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$30.00
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608 pages
St. Martin's Press -
English9780312369347
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), creator of the immortal Peter Rabbit, is known as an avid writer of comical illustrated letters to friends and as an assertive marketer of her illustrations, and this lively volume also captures her energetic participation in Victorian-era natural history research and conservation. Environmental historian Lear (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature) relates that, as a child in an upper-middle-class family, Potter sketched flowers, dead animals and live lizards, insects and rodents that she brought home. 'Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted' by young Beatrix and her brother, Bertram. In 1893, while traveling with her pet rabbit, Peter Piper, and seeking unusual fungi with self-taught mycologist Charles McIntosh, Potter jotted an illustrated note 'about a disobedient young rabbit called "Peter"' to an ailing child friend and sketched Peter's nemesis, a McIntosh–look-alike farmer called Mr. McGregor, creating 'two fictional characters that one day would be world-famous.' Lear judges Potter 'a brilliant amateur' naturalist who expressed strong convictions about land preservation. Potter's witty journals, with their close observations of people, animals, objects and places, serve as the basis for Lear's engrossing account, which will appeal to ecologists, historians, child lit buffs and those who want to know the real Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Benjamin Bunny. A movie, Miss Potter, also releases in January. 16 pages of color illus., 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Beatrix Potter (1866 — 1943), creator of the immortal Peter Rabbit, is known as an avid writer of comical illustrated letters to friends and as an assertive marketer of her illustrations, and this lively volume also captures her energetic participation in Victorian-era natural history research and conservation. Environmental historian Lear (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature) relates that, as a child in an upper-middle-class family, Potter sketched flowers, dead animals and live lizards, insects and rodents that she brought home. 'Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted' by young Beatrix and her brother, Bertram. In 1893, while traveling with her pet rabbit, Peter Piper, and seeking unusual fungi with self-taught mycologist Charles McIntosh, Potter jotted an illustrated note 'about a disobedient young rabbit called 'Peter' ' to an ailing child friend and sketched Peter's nemesis, a McIntosh — look-alike farmer called Mr. McGregor, creating 'two fictional characters that one day would be world-famous.' Lear judges Potter 'a brilliant amateur' naturalist who expressed strong convictions about land preservation. Potter's witty journals, with their close observations of people, animals, objects and places, serve as the basis for Lear's engrossing account, which will appeal to ecologists, historians, child lit buffs and those who want to know the real Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Benjamin Bunny. A movie, Miss Potter, also releases in January. 16 pages of color illus., 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day"
by Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor,
"[A] careful, intelligent look at Potter's life. Potter kept a coded journal in her youth and thanks to these entries Lear is able to share some of Potter's own thoughts and feelings, at least in the early part of her life....[A]s an appreciation of a life well-lived and a talent almost accidentally nurtured, Beatrix Potter tells an absorbing story well worth reading." (read the entire CSM review)
"Review"
by Booklist (Starred Review),
"[A] meticulously researched and brilliantly re-created life that, despite its length and accretion of detail, is endlessly fascinating and often illuminating. It is altogether a remarkable achievement."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"A stolid biography by environmental historian Lear that gets at the facts of Victorian Potter's life but does not bother addressing motivations and thwarted ambition."
"Review"
by Los Angeles Times,
"Happily, Lear lavishes attention on the sources and back stories for Potter's drawings....The last few pages of Lear's book...are the most stirring. This legacy of natural beauty is as important as Potter's books and her biographer has every right to cheer it."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
With never-before-seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond the perennial fascination with Beatrix Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman. One 8-page b&w insert. Two 8-page color inserts.
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
In this remarkable biography, Linda Lear offers a new look at the extraordinary woman who gave us some of the most beloved childrens books of all time. Potter found freedom from her conventional Victorian upbringing in the countryside. Nature inspired her imagination as an artist and scientific illustrator, but The Tale of Peter Rabbit brought her fame, financial success, and the promise of happiness when she fell in love with her editor Norman Warne. After his tragic and untimely death, Potter embraced a new life as the owner of Hill Top Farm in the English Lake District and a second chance at happiness. As a visionary landowner, successful farmer and sheep-breeder, she was able to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a lively, independent and passionate woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
"Synopsis"
by Macmillan,
Peter Rabbit, Mr. McGregor, and many other Beatrix Potter characters remain in the hearts of millions. However, though Potter is a household name around the world, few know the woman behind the illustrations. Her personal life, including a romantic relationship with her publisher, Norman Warne, and her significant achievements outside of children's literature remain largely unknown. In Linda Lears enchanting new biography, we get the life story of this incredible, funny, and independent woman. As one of the first female naturalists in the world, Potter brought the beauty and importance of nature back into the imagination at a time when plunder was more popular than preservation. Through her art she sought to encourage conservation and change the world. With never before seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond our perrenial fascination with Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman--one whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
Linda Lear has always been intrigued by how the lives of artists and writers have been influenced in the natural world. She discovered quite by accident that before Beatrix Potter began her legendary series of "little books" for children she had been an avid student of natural history and might have had a career in science had such opportunities been available to women. As Lear explored Potter's evolution from amateur scientist to acclaimed author-illustrator and careful steward of the land, she herself became an admirer of Lakeland's farms, fells, and sheep. A professor of environmental history and the author of the prize-winning biography, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, Lear is an enthusiastic horticulturist and collector of botanical art. She and her husband live in Bethesda, Maryland.
Beatrix Potter created books that will forever conjure nature for millions. Yet though she is a household name around the world, her personal life and her other significant achievements remain largely unknown.
Potter's was, Linda Lear reveals, a life inspired and enriched by nature. Even as a child and a young woman, growing up in a wealthy, conventional London family, her imagination and artistic talent were fed by visits to the countryside. She found personal and financial freedom through nature, first as an artists and scientific illustrator, and then as the creator of the overnight bestseller Peter Rabbitwhich also revealed her to be a far-sighted marketer and merchandiser. It was the "little books" that led Beatrix to her first great love: her editor and publisher Norman Warne, who died tragically just a month after he proposed to her.
But Beatrix Potter was one of those rare individuals who is given a second chance at happiness. Her purchase of Hill Top Farm in the Lake District just after Warne's death led to her reinvention as a successful landowner and country farmer, and eventually to a happy marriage to William Heelis. She became a conservationist in order to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art, and, through the lands she bequeathed to the National Trust on her death, she saved whole areas of the Lake District for posterity.
At a time when plunder was more popular than preservation, she had brought nature back into the imagination. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a strong, humorous, and independent woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.
"The matters on which Lear chooses to focus her work are so genuinely interesting . . . Indeed, Potter's biography comes close to being the opposite of a familiar writer's life. In the standard model, a ton of irrelevant detail adds hardly anything to our understanding of the writer's work and (usually) leaves us with a deep sense of her personal unsatisfactoriness. In Potter's case, it comes to seem that those extraliterary detailsthe years from 1911 to 1943were her real life, and the books were, to her, a kind of footnote. I am struggling to think of a writer who comes across as more humanly admirable than the energetic, blunt, determined, and always truthful Beatrix Potter."The New York Review of Books
“Lear, a former professor of environmental history and author of a well-regarded biography of Rachel Carson, brings a valuable new perspective to a much-debated life . . . Lear presents enough historical context and documentation to transform Potters life story from one of sad limitation to a roster of fine accomplishments, crowned with a happy thirty-three year marriage . . . Potters entire life is presented in as much detail as her last thirty happy years are, beginning with significant ancestors and their intellectual and financial heritage as well as the Unitarianism that curtailed the Potters social circle in London. Lears account of the shy young womans early botanical drawings and research is fascinating, not least for its revelation of character . . . Beatrix Potter covers the genesis of the childrens books with extensive reference to their actual settings, liking stories with the people, creatures, and events that inspired them and describing the books themselves with cogent appreciation . . . Beatrix herself is most generously revealed via Lears excellent descriptions and abundance of telling quotes . . . Lear seems to have consulted nearly all of the vast number of available primary sources with diligence and intelligence. Her book is splendidly documented: virtually every paragraph has its endnote, often with several citations. Lear is not only an impeccable historian but a grand storyteller, worthy of her subject; her writing is a pleasurea suitable companion to Potters own marvelously succinct and ironical style. Lears point of view as a naturalist is a prefect match for Potters own lifelong dedication to natural history and the preservation of land, landscape, and community . . . Altogether, this is a magisterial and definitive biography, a delight in every way.”Joanna Rudge Long, Horn Book
"As an appreciation of a life well-lived and a talent almost accidentally nurtured, Beatrix Potter, tells an absorbing story well worth reading."The Christian Science Monitor
"Lear paints an appealing, revealing picture of an independent, accomplished and loving woman who used her art and research to educate herself and a host of readers."BookPage
"The great achievement of this book is the way it knits together Potter's lifelong activities in art and science and shows how they are all part of an extraordinarily integrated life: how her feeling for plants and animals and her finely detailed observations of the natural world were the foundation stones of her children's books as well as her land management skills and environmental awareness."The Australian
"An in-depth biography of Beatrix Potter is long overdue and here Linda Lear fills that gap with a thoroughly well-researched and compelling book."Judy Taylor, author of Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman
"Potter was a famously close observer of the world around her, and Lear i
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