Betsy Bray
Suzanne Terry

Wednesdays, March 14 - April 4 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. 4 sessions
Engineering Center, One Walnut Street

Probably everyone is familiar with Peter Rabbit, and those of us lucky enough to have grown up being read to from Beatrix Potter’s little books might recall Mrs. Tiggywinkle, Squirrel Nutkin, or Jemima Puddle-Duck. Indeed, most people who know of Beatrix Potter think of her as the author and illustrator of little stories about animals who wear clothing and have a propensity for getting into trouble. But the real Beatrix Potter was far more than that. She was a serious naturalist, an amateur paleontologist, a mycologist, a sheep farmer, and an ardent conservationist. There is Boston connection as well. Although Beatrix Potter never traveled to America, her stories and illustrations were introduced to the American audience in the Horn Book, a journal published here in Boston.

This seminar will cover Beatrix Potter’s life from her childhood in London to her farming days in the Lake District, Cumbria. We will examine her stories, her characters, and her illustrations. Some other topics to be covered include her botanical fungi drawings; her journal written in code (and finally deciphered), her focus on hedgehogs and sheep; food and customs in Victorian England; and the Gypsies of Scotland she encountered as a young girl. We will also discuss the ongoing work of the Beatrix Potter Society today, and Hill Top, the National Trust property that was once her home. Talks will be illustrated with slides and hands-on materials.

Suggested reading: Beatrix Potter: a life in nature, by Linda Lear (St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

Betsy Bray

Betsy Bray has recently retired as Library Director of the Cora J. Belden Library in Rocky Hill, CT. and now lives on Cape Cod. She is the North American Liaison Officer of the London-based Beatrix Potter Society. She lectures widely on Beatrix Potter, including a recent tour on the transatlantic crossing of the Queen Mary 2.



Suzanne Terry

Suzanne Terry is the Children’s Librarian at the Boston Athenæum. She was a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts in the Education Department for fourteen years, and she has been a member of the Beatrix Potter Society since 2002.