Letters to Children from Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was a prolific letter-writer and among the hundreds of her surviving letters are a large number that were written to children. The chief recipients were eight children of her former governess, Annie Moore. Beatrix wrote to them, individually, long letters illustrated with witty drawings and full of news about her pets, her holidays, or simply telling stories she had invented. It was in a letter to Noel Moore, written in 1893 to cheer him up when he was ill, that she wrote down for the first time the story of Peter Rabbit, from which she was to create her most famous children's book. As she became established as an author she continued to write letters to children, including the young members of the Warne family, her publishers.