The Tale of Peter Rabbit

This collection of rarely seen editions of Beatrix Potter’s much loved debut, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, features exquisite facsimiles from the archive of her publisher Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., charting the transformation from Peter’s initial appearance in a picture letter, to the glorious full-colour deluxe first commercial edition.

Collectors can follow the emergence of the miniature masterpiece from the seeds of the story in a now famous picture letter written to entertain a sick child, through Beatrix Potter’s privately printed edition with its distinctive line drawings, to the mock-up book – or maquette – handwritten in Potter’s beautiful script showing exactly how she wished the words and pictures to appear. With the full-colour commercial deluxe version first produced in 1902, the transformation is complete.