Jackdaw Sweep

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.

1890–1894

First commissions: cards, rabbits and frogs

In the 1890s Beatrix printed Christmas and other greeting cards of her own design — her first commercially successful works. In 1890 the firm of Hildesheimer and Faulkner bought several drawings of her rabbit Benjamin Bunny to illustrate Frederic Weatherly’s verses “A Happy Pair”, in 1893 several more for “Our Dear Relations”, and in 1894 the publisher Ernest Nister took a series of frog illustrations and verses for the annual “Changing Pictures”.

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.

September 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.