The Amiable Guinea-pig

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three Original Peter Rabbit Books between 1901 and 1913. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.

In 1902 Potter began working on a book of rhymes in the style of the picture books of Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane. By 1905 she had filled an exercise book with some 'most extremely odd rhymes' and sent it to her publisher, Norman Warne, for his approval. He initialled the rhymes he liked best and returned the book remarking, 'One or two of them are delicious'. Shortly after, Norman Warne died suddenly and the book of rhymes was put to one side.

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In 1917, Fruing Warne, Norman's older brother, approached Potter for another story. The firm was in financial difficulties and a Potter tale would always be sure to sell. Potter revisited her idea of a book of rhymes and prepared an abridged version with six of the original rhymes, including one in the style of Edward Lear's limericks:

There once was an amiable guinea-pig,

Who brushed back his hair like a perwig -

He wore a sweet tie,

As blue as the sky -

And his whiskers and buttons were very big.

Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes was published in October 1917; although this particular watercolour illustration was not used in the book, a line version of it appears on the title page.