Rough sketch illustrating 'The Three Spinners'

1881–1897

A journal in a cipher of her own

From 1881 Beatrix kept a journal in a simple substitution cipher of her own devising — in tiny handwriting, serving as both sketchbook and literary experiment, in which she described society, her impressions of art and the life around her. The entries stop in 1897, when her energies were absorbed in scientific study and in efforts to publish her drawings.

summer 1892

Charles McIntosh and the fungi

In the summer of 1892, at Dunkeld in Perthshire, Beatrix met Charles McIntosh, a revered naturalist and amateur mycologist: he helped make her illustrations more accurate, taught her taxonomy and supplied her with live specimens to paint in winter. By the 1890s her scientific interests had centred on mycology; she was first drawn to fungi by their colours and their evanescence.

1893

A letter to Noel Moore about four rabbits

In September 1893, on holiday at Eastwood near Dunkeld, Beatrix ran out of things to write to Noel, the often-ill eldest son of her former governess Annie Carter Moore, and told him a story about “four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter”. It became one of the most famous children’s letters ever written and the basis of her future career; it was Annie who later suggested that such letters might make good children’s books.

1895–1897

A theory of spore germination, and Kew Gardens

In 1895, curious about how fungi reproduce, Beatrix began microscopic drawings of agaric spores and developed a theory of their germination. Through her uncle, the chemist Sir Henry Roscoe, she consulted botanists at Kew and convinced George Massee of her ability to germinate spores, but William Thiselton-Dyer, the director of Kew, rebuffed her because of her sex and amateur status.

1897

A paper for the Linnean Society

In 1897 Beatrix submitted a paper, “On the Germination of the Spores of the Agaricineae”, to the Linnean Society, but as a woman she could neither attend the meeting nor read it herself — George Massee introduced it. She later withdrew it on realising that some of her samples were contaminated, yet she continued her microscopic studies for several more years.

1900–1901

A dummy book of the rabbit tale, printed at her own expense

In 1900 Beatrix revised her tale of the four little rabbits and made a dummy book of it — it has been suggested, in imitation of Helen Bannerman’s 1899 bestseller; no one would buy it. So in December 1901 she had it printed at her own expense for family and friends — in black and white, with a coloured frontispiece.