Production
The origin of The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher lies a story letter Potter wrote to a child in September 1893 while summering on the River Tay. The following year, she created nine sketches called "A Frog he would a-fishing go" and sold them to publisher Ernest Nister. They were released with verses by Clifton Bingham in 1896.
Energized by the success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, Potter considered expanding the frog tale and bought back her drawings and the publisher's printer's blocks. She wrote her editor Norman Warne, "I should like to do Mr. Jeremy Fisher ... I think I can make something of him". The tale was set aside while Potter and Warne developed other projects, but in 1905 he approved the frog tale. As Potter biographer Daphne Kutzner writes of Potter's illustrations for Jeremy: "When she finally did the illustrations for the book, she changed the original background from the River Tay in Scotland to Eswaithe Water in the Lakes. The illustrations are indeed lovely, showing Potter's skill both as a naturalist and a fantasist".
In August 1905, Norman Warne died, and his brother Harold became Potter's editor. She wrote to him indicating Norman had approved the frog project: "We had thought of doing ... "Mr. Jeremy Fisher" to carry on the series of little . I know some people don't like frogs! but I think I had convinced Norman that I could make it a really pretty book with a good many flowers & water plants for backgrounds". Warne decided to put Jeremy Fisher into print.
In July 1906, 20,000 copies of The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher were released in paper boards at a shilling and in decorated cloth at one shilling six pence in a small format. Another 5,000 copies were published in September 1906 and another 5,000 in September 1907. The book was dedicated to Stephanie Hyde Parker, the daughter of Potter's cousin Ethel, Lady Hyde Parker: "For Stephanie from Cousin B". Jeremy sold as profitably as other Potter productions.
Read more about this topic: The Tale Of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
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