The Journal of Beatrix Potter from 1881-1897

by Beatrix Potter

Between the ages of 15 and 30 Beatrix Potter kept a code-written journal. These were the hidden years of her life, and they were to remain in obscurity until Leslie Linder eventually cracked the code and presented to the world this remarkable account of upper middle-class life in late Victorian times. The journal reveals Beatrix Potter's surprising awareness of current events, her shrewd judgement of human character, her appreciation of natural history and art and her keen sense of humour.

The volume is illustrated with facsimile pages from the Journal, examples of her drawings and water colours, and photographs of the Potter family and of some of the places mentioned in the Journal. There are 28 illustrations in colour and 39 in monochrome, and the volume includes Family Trees and a comprehensive Index.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Classics, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Victorian

439 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, mycologist, and conservationist who is best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit.

Born into a wealthy household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets, and through holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developed a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Because she was a woman, her parents discouraged intellectual development, but her study and paintings of fungi led her to be widely respected in the field of mycology.

In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit and became secretly engaged to her publisher, Norman Warne, causing a breach with her parents, who disapproved of his social status. Warne died before the wedding.

Potter eventually published 24 children's books, the most recent being The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots (2016), and having become financially independent of her parents, was able to buy a farm in the Lake District, which she extended with other purchases over time.

In her forties, she married a local solicitor, William Heelis. She became a sheep breeder and farmer while continuing to write and illustrate children's books. Potter died in 1943 and left almost all of her property to The National Trust in order to preserve the beauty of the Lake District as she had known it, protecting it from developers.

Potter's books continue to sell well throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in various formats, including a ballet, films, and in animation.

Reviews

[Sula]

Having skimmed large chunks of this, I feel it's only fair to mark it as did-not-finish.

It's someone's dairy, not intended for publication, so I don't think it's fair to give it a rating. As one can imagine of such a thing, large parts are not that interesting. Yes a few quotes really jelled with me, and I enjoyed little descriptions or pieces of information that let one imagine life in Victorian England. However, large chunks are less interesting, just descriptions of paintings she saw, talk and gossip about various people etc. Some might be interesting as they are well known - John Everett Millais was a close friend of her father and he comes up many times. I enjoyed little snippets which are interesting from our future perspective - 'There is a curious discovery in photography, that it is possible to obtain a dim picture of the bones in a man's hand' and her thoughts on that, as well as Mr. Gladstone's comment while talking with her father 'What would it come to, how far would the art be carried, did papa think that people would ever be able to photograph in colours?'.

It's also interesting how familiar almost it seems, it's not the dense and florid writing style associated with Victorians, and its style is approachable to today's reader. Just as a diary of a lady today might intermingle news of friends of the family with national news, her hobbies, her visits to places, so did Beatrix Potter. It's also a reminder that Victorians, and in particular Victorian women did get about the country. Of course, this is an upper-middle-class perspective, but with the stereotype today that Victorian women just sat around sewing, and fainting at the sight of anything that slightly offended their tastes, it's was interesting to read a little from the perspective of a real Victorian woman who travelled the country, was aware of news and politics at the time, and had an interest and great knowledge in natural science, particularly fungi.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Between the ages of 15 and 30 Beatrix Potter kept a code-written journal. These were the hidden years of her life, and they were to remain in obscurity until Leslie Linder eventually cracked the code and presented to the world this remarkable account of upper middle-class life in late Victorian times. The journal reveals Beatrix Potter's surprising awareness of current events, her shrewd judgement of human character, her appreciation of natural history and art and her keen sense of humour.

"The volume is illustrated with facsimile pages from the Journal, examples of her drawings and water colours, and photographs of the Potter family and of some of the places mentioned int the Journal."

I love Beatrix Potter -- love her whimsical drawings and charming little stories. I also like the movie about her first publication, her engagement and the subsequent death of her fiance, and her absorption in the Lake District. So I was very much looking forward to this book.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that this journal covers an earlier period in her life, and not the times I was interested in reading about. Her journal pays great attention to political happenings, society gossip and deaths, etc. I learned that the Potter family moved about a great deal, which was a surprise to me. I also learned that Beatrix had a brother, a fact I was also not aware of.

I loved this quote: "Time goes so fast I cannot keep up with it."

And this entry surprised me: "More splendid sunset than ever, a blue moon! bright silvering blue. I believe it was noticed the night before, people in the streets by are looking at it. Perhaps it was something to do with the old man plucking geese, for we had our first snow next day. As sensible a gtheory as the the red sky is caused by volcanic dust from Java." Which of course it was, as Krakatoa erupted in 1883, and changed the weather and atmosphere for a year or more.

All in all, I skimmed as much as I read, as I just couldn't get into "Went to Eastbourne 2nd. February, partly for papa's health, partly for sending Bertram to school. First time I'd seen the town, nice of its kind. Fine sea on Saturday." or "Papa heard from Mr. Strinthal that Mr. Gaskell died at five yesterday morning. Dear old man, he has had a very peaceful end. If ever any one led a blameless peaceful life, it was he. Another old friend gone to rest. How few are left."

But I am tempted to give the journal another read, and pay attention to the descriptions of the places the Potter family traveled to, and stayed in. I haven't made up my mind whether I will, or not.

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if you can really rate someone's journals, but these get four stars for my enjoyment in reading them. I enjoyed more her earlier voice when she was a teenager, interpreting art and politics and society through a young person's eyes. Really immersed me in Victorian England, of course she's a naturalist so her descriptions are excellent. She gets a little more jaded by life at the end, understandably so, but so grateful these have been translated and can be read so her fascinating life can be understood.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a huge Beatrix Potter fan, this tome is a challenge, but working my way through it has been a fun adventure. It can't be read in one library check-out period however, and if your a fan, buy the book instead.

[ac. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Only a year, but if it is like the last, it will be a lifetime - I can't settle to anything but my painting, I lost my patience over everything else. There is nothing to be done, I must watch things pass - Oh Faith - Faith."

This was the most dense, most fulfilling, and riveting experience of learning about the daily life of a Victorian lady who ended up changin the landscape of children's storytelling with just a few animals and great imagination. To say I adore Beatrix Potter after only just discovering this past year is an understatement; I only wish I had found her work as a child myself and not young adult, that way I could hold her more fondly to my heart.

Such a shame that this digital copy is not widely available outside of the Web Archive (to whom I'll forever be grateful for their hard work), because her mind was so fast, so intricate and delightful I'm shocked most people don't really know about this! Usually I am of the mind that journals of artist's who happen to be culturally important should remain private (see: Kurt Cobain's journals and their predatory origins), but this not only functions as a snapshot of the young life of a remarkable writer of the 19th/20th century, but also as a way to demythologize the bizarre popular notion that modern audiences have of the past, to normalize and highlight just how little has changed in our human nature. Just marvelous!

Took me a billion years to read this baby because it was my final year of University and that book slump was kicking my ass majorly, but for sure I hope to buy a copy of my own to peruse and re-enjoy Beatrix's stories, her comments on art, nature and the working of the ton of her time for as long as I am able.

Leaving you now with another of my favourite quotes, which is essentially the best and funniest short story she never published, from it:

"Mr. James Potter died at the age of forty-two, when grandpapa was a very little boy. He was a Manchester merchant. His father was drowned coming from the East Indies. One of my great grandpapas, I believe Mr. James Potter, was in the habit of walking in the garden and eating live snails. I asked papa if he was a Frenchman, but he said he was a respectable gentleman of Derbyshire."

[Zandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Beatrix Potter's journal fascinating more for what it does not say, than for what does say. It seems Potter had a privileged, cultured, leisurely life determined very much by her well-connected, well-to-do parents, who also denied her of either personal or professional independence. I found it so interesting that Potter never seems to question the rightness of this, she seems to have had no impulse to rebel and there are only occasional references made to a pervasive sense of personal unhappiness and lack of fulfillment. Potter seems to have had no real friends her own age, she was not close to her parents, and yet she lived with them until she was 47.

I wonder why Potter wrote this journal, with its often 'boring' account of her daily activities. There is nothing to hint that Potter had any deep awareness of her own future fame and fortune. And why did she write her journal in a code that even she found difficult to read? She had nothing hide, in what she wrote, but she was very determined to hide it all the same.

I wish Potter had written more about her ambitions and hopes, that her inner life was more 'present' on the pages of her journal.

[Emily]

2010/2011, unfinished, started 3/1/2010, marked progress to p. 89. 2025 Picking up from bookmark at p. 97, on Beatrix's birthday go July 28th.
I remember when I was reading before as I'm thinking it again that she has strong opinions about the composition of art which she's going to see the shows of in galleries. I know art is her thing and this may be the biggest feature of her education, I don't know or remember if she had any formal education. But at July 1884 where I've picked it up she's not quite 18 but she's describing the artists' work, overall opinions and what's good or bad in the compositions she's seen.

[Elizabeth Huber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very interesting as a book but I always love reading diaries of well-known writers simply because I love to keep a diary myself.

[Frank Paternoster · Rating 5 out of 5]

We think of Beatrix Potter as only a writer of children's books, but this journal, which she kept between 15 and 30n years of age shows she was much more. Here are her views on paintings she saw at galleries and museums, her efforts to become an artist, and beginnings as a naturalists. Here is a young women's view of life in the last half of the 19th century made even more interesting by the famous and historical people her and her and her family knew. Overall a fascinating view in to a society gone forever.

[JD Shaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Being a diary, one feels as if I have no right to rate or comment upon it. But as a book of interest to others, it gives quite a bit of insight into the character and interests of one of the world's more famous author / artists. She has a definite love and interest in nature and is keen on observing people. She also has a large fondness for fungi. She also seems quite interested in politics, or at least did more when in her late teens and early twenties.

It was worth reading for the interesting inside and tidbits, but I probably would not personally read it again.

[Katy]

Written entirely in code, cracked by Leslie Linder. The daily happenings of Beatrix's life before her fame with Peter Rabbit.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful.