A well-behaved black cat who leads “rather a double life” will star in the latest Beatrix Potter story – previously unknown – in a book to be published this year, 102 years after it was written and almost 75 years after the beloved children’s author’s death.
Advertisement
Hanks discovered manuscripts of the story in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Potter archive.
This led her to the publisher’s archive, where she says she found “three manuscripts, two handwritten in childrens’ school notebooks and one typeset and laid out in a dummy book; one rough colour sketch of Kitty-in-Boots and a pencil rough of our favourite arch-villain, Mr Tod”.
A century after it was written, a Beatrix Potter story will be released later this year.
The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots is set to come out in September, but unlike all of Potter’s other children’s books, it won’t feature drawings by the British author.
Kitty-In-Boots is in some ways very typical of Potter’s other stories with its gentle timbre and cast of friendly farm animals and their humans. “Those interruptions took over and meant she never went back to the tale”, said Hanks. “And, most excitingly, our treasured, mischievous Peter Rabbit makes an appearance – albeit older, slower and portlier!”
Unfortunately for fans of Beatrix Potter’s sensitive artwork, she created only one illustration for the book.
Potter planned to finish the story, but was interrupted by World War I, marriage, sheep farming and colds.
Quentin Blake, best known for his work with Roald Dahl has illustrated the story.
Only one illustration by Potter appears to exist.
“I liked the story immediately – it’s full of incident and mischief and character – and I was fascinated to think that I was being asked to draw pictures for it”, Blake said.
“I have a odd feeling that it might have been waiting for me”, he said.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, when Deborah Taylor of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library toured England’s Lake District as part of a class about children’s literature, she wrote, “Beatrix Potter is as much appreciated here for all her land conservation efforts as she is for her literary achievements”.
