PETER RABBIT LIBRARY 10 BOOKS SET Title in This Set The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck The Tale of Tom Kitte The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle The Tale of Two Bad Mice The Tale of Benjamin Bunny The Tale of Tailor of Gloucester The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, mycologist, and conservationist who is best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit.
Born into a wealthy household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets, and through holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developed a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Because she was a woman, her parents discouraged intellectual development, but her study and paintings of fungi led her to be widely respected in the field of mycology.
In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit and became secretly engaged to her publisher, Norman Warne, causing a breach with her parents, who disapproved of his social status. Warne died before the wedding.
Potter eventually published 24 children's books, the most recent being The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots (2016), and having become financially independent of her parents, was able to buy a farm in the Lake District, which she extended with other purchases over time.
In her forties, she married a local solicitor, William Heelis. She became a sheep breeder and farmer while continuing to write and illustrate children's books. Potter died in 1943 and left almost all of her property to The National Trust in order to preserve the beauty of the Lake District as she had known it, protecting it from developers.
Potter's books continue to sell well throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in various formats, including a ballet, films, and in animation.
This box set contains 10 of the 23 Beatrix Potter books:
🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇 The Tale of Peter Rabbit This is the first of the Beatrix Potter stories and tells the tale of the young, mischievous Peter Rabbit who goes for a trip down to Mr. McGregor's farm despite being warned not to by his mum. Once down there he of course gets into trouble. 🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
🐿🐿🐿🐿🐿 The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin This is the second of the Beatrix Potter books. “This is a Tale about a tail—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.” Squirrel Nutkin is a naughty squirrel with “no nice manners”. Every day he and several other squirrels travel across a lake to Owl Island to gather nuts. Owl Island is so called because an owl lives there. “In the middle of the lake there is an island covered with trees and nut bushes; and amongst those trees stands a hollow oak-tree, which is the house of an owl who is called Old Brown.” All the squirrels bring him offerings everyday so that they can gather nuts on his island with his blessing. All except Squirrel Nutkin who just brazenly asks annoying riddles to the owl. That is until the sixth day when the owl has had enough and so pounces on Nutkin’s bushy tale thus getting his comeuppance. Nutkin escapes though, although losing most of his tale in the process (hence why this is a “tale about a tail”) and Squirrel Nutkin comes to hate riddles. 🐿🐿🐿🐿🐿
🐭🐭🐭🐭🐭 The Tailor of Gloucester This is the third of the Beatrix Potter books. The story is of a Christmas miracle. The tailor “although he sewed fine silk for his neighbours, he himself was very, very poor”. He is about to get his big break though. “I shall make my fortune – the Mayor of Gloucester is to be married on Christmas Day in the morning, and he hath ordered a coat and an embroidered waistcoat – to be lined with yellow taffeta – and the taffeta sufficeth; there is no more left over in snippets than will serve to make tippets for mice –".
The tailor has cut all the pieces of cloth, but needs to get his last bit of taffeta ready, and there still several days to go before Christmas. However after sending his cat out to get the taffeta he falls ill and is unable to leave his house. “In the tailor's shop in Westgate Street the embroidered silk and satin lay cut out upon the table – one-and-twenty button-holes – and who should come to sew them, when the window was barred, and the door was fast locked?” It isn’t until Christmas morning that he is well enough to go back to the shop. "Alack," said the tailor, "I have my twist; but no more strength nor time than will serve to make me one single button-hole; for this is Christmas Day in the Morning! The Mayor of Gloucester shall be married by noon and where is his cherry-coloured coat?"
Then there’s the miracle, “where he had left plain cuttings of silk – there lay the most beautifullest coat and embroidered satin waistcoat that ever were worn by a Mayor of Gloucester”, a finished coat, apart from that last bit of twist. So the tailor finishes the coat “and from then began the luck of the Tailor of Gloucester; he grew quite stout, and he grew quite rich.” 🐭🐭🐭🐭🐭
🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇 The Tale of Benjamin Bunny This is the fourth of the Beatrix Potter books, but seems to follow on from the first. Benjamin Bunny goes to see his cousin Peter Rabbit who has lost his clothes. Peter says that the scarecrow in Mr. McGregor's garden has his clothes now. Benjamin Bunny tells Peter that they can go and get them back because he saw Mr. McGregor and Mrs. McGregor leaving the farm for a day trip. So off they go.
After getting Peter’s clothes back Benjamin insists on taking some of Mr. McGregor’s vegetables too. Peter though is scared and wants to go home. It is like he has lost his confidence after what happened to him in the previous book.
As they go about stealing vegetables the pair come across the farmer’s cat. They hide from it under a basket but get stuck there when the cat decides to rest atop it and sleep. This is until old Mr. Benjamin Bunny (dad of young Benjamin) comes along and rescues them. 🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
🐭🐭🐭🐭🐭 The Tale of Two Bad Mice This is the fifth of the Beatrix Potter books, and the second to predominantly feature mice after “The Tailor of Gloucester”. This tale is set inside a house, in a child’s room, where a doll’s house stays. “Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's-house; it was red brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney.” The doll’s-house belongs to two dolls, Lucinda and Jane.
In the same room live Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, two mice who live in a hole under the skirting-board. One day they investigate the doll’s-house and happen upon a set dinner table with ham and lobster. They can’t control themselves and try to eat the food but it is too hard so in a rage they smash it all to pieces. “Then those mice set to work to do all the mischief they could—especially Tom Thumb!” They even take things back to their mouse-hole for their own home.
But at the end they have remorse. “So that is the story of the two Bad Mice,—but they were not so very very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke.” Tom Thumb used a found sixpence to pay back the dolls and Hunca Munca set about sweeping the doll’s-house floors every morning. 🐭🐭🐭🐭🐭
🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔 The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle This is the sixth of the Beatrix Potter books. The tale features a little girl Lucie who lives at a farm and has lost a pinny and three pocket-hankins. She goes on the look out for them and asks the animals where they are but they don’t have them. Eventually she follows a path away from the farm and finds a door straight into a hill, behind which singing can be heard.
She enters and finds Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a polite, washer-woman. “Her little black nose went sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes went twinkle, twinkle; and underneath her cap—where Lucie had yellow curls—that little person had Prickles!”
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is washing the clothes of all the creatures of the area including characters that have featured in previous books such as Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin. After the clothes are clean she and Lucie go and deliver them until all clothes are delivered and all Lucie is left with in her hands is her clean pinny and pocket-handkins.
All through the book Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is Lucie-sized, whereas in previous Beatrix Potter books the animals are normal-sized in proportion to their surroundings. However the ending, which is quite glorious, makes it clear as to why this is. 🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔
🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸 The Tale of the Mr. Jeremy Fisher This is the eighth of the Beatrix Potter books. “Once upon a time there was a frog called Mr. Jeremy Fisher; he lived in a little damp house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond.” Essentially the story is about a fishing trip where Mr. Jeremy Fisher goes a-fishing for minnows. "I will get some worms and go fishing and catch a dish of minnows for my dinner.” However he almost gets eaten so catches nothing. It means he has no fish to serve for a meal he is hosting with his friends, Sir Isaac Newton (a newt) and Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, at the end of the story where they instead make do. 🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸 🐸
😸😸😸😸😸 The Tale of Tom Kitten This is the eleventh of the Beatrix Potter books. “Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet.”
One day their mother Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit is expecting friends over for tea. She wants to make her kittens respectable. She scrubs them, brushes them, combs them, dresses them in their best clothes and then sends them into the garden to keep them out of the way whilst she makes the food.
"Now keep your frocks clean, children! You must walk on your hind legs. Keep away from the dirty ash-pit, and from Sally Henny Penny, and from the pig-stye and the Puddle-Ducks."
Of course that was a bad idea as, try as they might, the kittens end up with their ill-fitting clothes coming off with the Puddle-Ducks taking a liking to them and taking them off their hands. So the kittens get into trouble when they get back and are kept out of the way but make a lot of noise upstairs as the tea party takes place, and the Puddle-Ducks lose the clothes at the bottom of the pond.
The moral of the story, if there is one, is not to dress your young kids in clothes that are too small for them, and not to let them play in the garden if you want to keep them clean, but really it is just a short story with a bit of fun to it. 😸😸😸😸😸
🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck This is the twelfth of the Beatrix Potter books and is a tail of jeopardy with a simple-minded duck coming up against a cunning fox. Jemima Puddle-Duck is annoyed “because the farmer's wife would not let her hatch her own eggs.” She wants to hatch them herself but wherever she lays them on the farm they are found. So she goes on a journey to find the perfect nest away from the farm and happens upon a “an elegantly dressed gentleman reading a newspaper” who “had black prick ears and sandy coloured whiskers” who offers her a place to nest. ”I have a sackful of feathers in my woodshed. No, my dear madam, you will be in nobody's way. You may sit there as long as you like." So Jemima does that but the wily old fox suggests they have a dinner party to celebrate, omelette being the meal. Jemima goes to collect ingredients for this not realising that her eggs are to be the meal but luckily tells the farmer’s collie dog who enlists some help from a couple of fox-hounds to scare the fox away. “And nothing more was ever seen of that foxy-whiskered gentleman” (except until “The Tale of Mr Tod” perhaps). 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆
🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇 The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies This is the fourteenth of the Beatrix Potter books.
“It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is "soporific”… They certainly had a very soporific effect upon the Flopsy Bunnies!” This is a continuation of the Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny books in that it features the same characters. Benjamin Bunny is a dad now, married to Flopsy, and he has six children. “I do not remember the separate names of their children; they were generally called the Flopsy Bunnies.” One day they are hungry so go out looking for something to eat. They find some overgrown lettuce on a rubbish heap next to Mr. McGregor’s garden. They eat it which has a “soporific” effect on them and sends them to sleep. Whilst asleep Mr. McGregor drops off some rubbish on his heap, notices the bunnies and collects them all into a sack. "One, two, three, four! five! six leetle rabbits!" His intention is to eat them or sell them. It is down to Benjamin, with some help from a mouse called Thomasina Tittlemouse to free them from the sack, replace them with six rotten vegetables, and watch as Mr. McGregor presents his catch to his wife. 🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
These books are great and of course include Beatrix Potter’s beautiful watercolour illustrations of the animals in the story. The pictures, in full colour, look great and have a realism to them (although the realistically depicted animals sometimes do things that only humans can do). I also like that they are common British animals in a British nature setting helping create an affinity with the countryside on our doorstep from a young age. I also love the old-Englishness of it too, with characters being given their full titles (Mr. Jeremy Fisher for example), and their clothes being the old-fashioned kind. The nature pictures are calming and good for well-being. 5-stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was delightful, although not entirely what I expected, but I still love it. The drawings are so pretty. But I hoped all the books were like The Tailor of Gloucester. There is alot more reading to do in that book.
I knew Peter Rabbit from my childhood, but did not know the rest of the characters. So I'm happy I got to meet them at this age!
Oh, Each book brings a new perspective to a whole world. I love the illustrations and how it is written. Some books were better than others but overall a lovely collection! Read more about my review in my blog!