Potter's World

Beatrix Potter kept many different kinds of pets such as rabbits, hedgehogs, mice, lizards, newts, frogs, bats and toads. When she wrote and illustrated her Peter Rabbit books, she knew all about the animal characters that she was creating from having watched her own pets and their behaviour.

Mrs. Tittlemouse "lives in a bank under a hedge" with "yards and yards of sandy passages, leading to storerooms and nut-cellars and seed-cellars" just as a real wood mouse would.

"When it was all beautifully neat and clean, she gave a party to five other little mice". From The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse (1910) When two wood mice meet they rear on their hind legs and box for a few seconds, moving their front legs very quickly.

House mice are the most familiar of Beatrix Potter's mice. Making their homes in our houses, they live beneath the floorboards and behind the skirting boards of many town and country houses.

The mouse in The Story of Miss Moppet (1906) shows typical house mouse athleticism in escaping the cat, shown here sliding down the bell-pull.

The mice in The Tailor of Gloucester (1903) are extraordinary. Not only can they sew and embroider, but they feel sorry for the tailor when he cannot finish the waistcoat and jacket in time for the Mayor's wedding. Like real house mice, they are lively, agile and busy.

The house mouse can squeeze through holes as small as 9mm in diameter and can climb quite easily. Here, Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca from The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904) struggle with the bolster from the doll's house that will eventually be squeezed through their mouse hole.

Appley Dapply (Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes, 1917) is a beady-eyed house mouse with characteristically large, sensitive ears and an appetite for practically anything edible.

In The Tale of Ginger and Pickles Mr. John Dormouse cannot be bothered with complaints about candles he has sold in his shop; he simply stays in bed, saying "very snug".

Foxes will often make a home for themselves in a badger's old deserted set. In The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912), however, the tables were turned as Tommy Brock took a nap in the old fox's bed.

When Mr. Tod returned and found him a fight followed. "Mr. Tod rushed upon Tommy Brock and Tommy Brock grappled with Mr. Tod amongst the broken crockery and there was a terrific battle..."

The fox's musty scent is strong and distinctive. "Nobody could call Mr. Tod "nice". The rabbits could not bear him; they could smell him half a mile off." From The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912)

Foxes are naturally playful and have been observed 'charming' their prey to attract it before going in for the kill. From The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908).

Beatrix Potter's most popular character is Peter Rabbit. Peter was a real rabbit, one of the many rabbits which Beatrix kept as a pet - "My rabbit Peter is so lazy, he lies before the fire in a box, with a little rug."

Her other rabbits were called Josephine and Mopsy, and Flopsy, Benjamin, and Cottontail who were Belgian rabbits.

"Peter might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught" From The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902).

"Around the hearth" - one of six illustrations for The Rabbits' Christmas Party, which Beatrix Potter gave to Aunt Lucie Roscoe.