BEATRIX POTTER ON KENNETH GRAHAME
Autograph Letter Signed
1942.
A single sheet of letter paper, closely written on two sides, to friend and neighbour, Mrs Wight, signed Beatrix Heelis. Potter begins by thanking Mrs Wight for some information she has provided and the warm weather, "... we are starting hay tomorrow - the crops look good-", and goes on to say that she is glad that Mrs Wight is occupied, "there's nothing like open air for soothing present anxiety and memories of past sadness". She then replies to comments from Mrs Wight on The Wind in the Willows, "Yes- Kenneth Grahame ought to have been an artist - at least all writers for children ought to have a sufficient recognition of what things look like - did he not describe Toad as combing his hair? A mistake to fly in the face of nature - a frog may wear galoshes; but I don't hold with toads having beards and wigs! So I prefer Badger." A central crease, but in fine condition.
A famous and much quoted letter in which Potter, ever forthright in her opinions, criticises Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.
Most of the drawings for the characters in Potter's books were based on Potter's own pets. In her youth Potter had been a keen student of nature and made numerous detailed studies of mushrooms, flowers, animals and birds, which showed a high standard of observation, even among natural science illustrators. Her aim was to make the characters in her stories as true to nature as possible, whereas Grahame's character's were merely anthropomorphised conduits of a human parable.
PROVANCE: Wright family; Jonkers Rare Books, catalogue 21, 2003; Private Collection
Stock ID: 32605
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