Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit, character created on September 4, 1893, in the pages of an illustrated letter written to a sick little boy by the British watercolourist and writer Beatrix Potter. “My dear Noel,” she began, “I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.” From that letter developed the small illustrated book The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which Potter published privately in 1901. Published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902, it became one of the best-selling children’s books on record.

Peter himself is quite possibly the world’s oldest licensed character, with thousands of new products adorned with his likeness produced every year. Potter herself patented her own Peter Rabbit doll, invented a board game featuring him, and even tried to market Peter Rabbit wallpaper designs.

To what can Peter Rabbit’s longevity be attributed? Certainly not to his costume, consisting of a little blue waistcoat with decidedly old-fashioned styling, or to his bucolic and circumscribed world. Perhaps Potter’s tales of Peter, couched in Edwardian sensibilities and morality, introduced young readers to the very real dangers lurking in the adult world and reinforced the notion that actions very often have consequences. (In Potter’s animal kingdom, foxes sometimes got eaten and kittens nearly baked into puddings.) After sneaking into Farmer McGregor’s garden—despite his mother’s warnings—Peter barely escapes capture and returns without his jacket, frightened but a little wiser, to his mother’s comforting embrace. Mrs. Rabbit has at the ready a cup of chamomile tea for Peter; for his good little siblings, who never get into the scrapes that tempt Peter, she produces a supper of bread and milk and blackberries.

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Potter’s other rabbit characters include Benjamin Bunny, Peter’s cousin, and the Flopsy Bunnies, Peter’s nieces and nephews. “The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends,” a six-part animated series based on Potter’s illustrations, was created in 1992 for television broadcast and home video.