The Tale of Tom Kitten - Production and Release

Production and Release

In 1906, Potter experimented with book formats for babies and very young children just acquiring verbal skills. One of the three books produced during this period was The Story of Miss Moppet, a Victorian moral tale about teasing and its consequences with a kitten as the titular heroine. As the model for Miss Moppet, Potter borrowed a kitten from a mason working at Hill Top and wrote Millie Warne, Norman Warne's sister, "I have borrowed a kitten and I am rather glad of the opportunity of working at the drawings. It is very young and pretty and a most fearful pickle." Tom Kitten himself would be created from the drawings Potter had produced during the production of The Story of Miss Moppet.

Potter began work on Tom Kitten in the summer of 1906, and used the gardens and interior of the farmhouse at Hill Top as the setting for the tale. A week after the letter to Millie Warne she wrote her publisher Harold Warne, "I have not quite finished the Kitten, it is an exasperating model; and I always find it difficult to settle to work in the country. I hope I have not been inconveniently long about it."

Three weeks later, she was on holiday at the rented country estate of Lingholm on the shores of Derwentwater with her parents and wrote, "I am wishing most heartily I was back at Sawrey, but I suppose I shall scramble along for a bit here; at all events I must get some drawing done, that kitten book has been sadly neglected." She had taken her drawing and sketching to one of the attics at Lingholm and found the place draughty yet "stuffy". She missed the sheltered open air and gardening at Hill Top. She was back at Hill Top in October and wrote Millie Warne that she was busy gardening and was stealing garden plants from her neighbours.

Tom Kitten was written out in an inexpensive exercise book with the text divided into short paragraphs and 24 pencil sketches pasted in at their corners. Tom's mother, Tabitha Twitchit was named after one of Mrs. Satterthwaite's cats at Belle Green where Potter was staying while alterations were underway at the Hill Top farmhouse.

The illustrations of the garden depict what Potter hoped to see following her labours there, and detail some of the flowers, trees, shrubs, and butterflies Potter described in her letters to Millie Warne. The farmhouse interior and its furnishings are precisely rendered. The entrance porch with its Barthay slate walls, the stone flagged floors, the oak panelling and deep-set windows were all original to the house and faithfully depicted. Potter added her personal furnishings to the illustrations: her flowered washbasin, the cane chair where the kittens sit to be scrubbed, her hall clock and wall mirror. The white wicket gate and the fern covered stone wall are real world details as are the views looking out over Hill Top, Smithy Lane, Stoney Lane winding up to Bank Wood, and the dry stone walls crossing the fields.

Some of the pictures of the ducks were made in London. As models, she used ducks belonging to a distant cousin who lived at Putney Park. She wrote to Warne of her pictures, "I hope to bring the remaining four in a few days, if I get to Putney again tomorrow. I hope you will like them. I think myself they will lighten up the book. It is a refreshment to do some outdoor sketching again."

A pencil sketch illustrating the line " stopped and stood in a row, staring up at the kittens" depicted the duck on the right facing the other two ducks, apparently in conversation. However when Potter copied her sketch for the book picture she inadvertently turned the duck's head to the right (like the other two ducks) with all three now facing the same direction. Although the kittens are not shown in the picture, the ducks now have their backs to the kittens sitting on the wall and cannot be staring up at them as the line indicates – but only those who are familiar with Sawrey would realize this.

Potter made several revisions to her manuscript using strips of paper pasted over lines in the manuscript to indicate her changes. Harold Warne criticized the line "all the rest of Tom's clothes came off" and thought "all" should be changed to "nearly all" but Potter objected:

"Nearly all" won't do! because I have drawn Thomas already with nothing! That would not signify: I could give something over but there are not many garments for Mr. Dranke to dress himself in; and it would give the story a new and criminal aspect if he forcibly took off and stole Tom's trousers.

The galley proofs arrived dated 21 February 1907, and Potter carefully read through them, making corrections where necessary and changes where appropriate. Twenty thousand copies were released in September 1907 in a 138 by 105 millimetres (5.4 in × 4.1 in) small book format and another 12,500 the following December. Two different bindings were available: one in grey-green paper boards priced at 1/- and a delxue edition in decorated cloth at 1/6d. The book was dedicated "to all Pickles—especially those who get upon my garden wall". "Pickle" was Potter's word for mischievous kittens, children, and her exuberant, free-spirited cousin Caroline Hutton. Potter received a copy of the published book and wrote Harold Warne, "I am much pleased with Tom Kitten. Some of the pictures are very bad, but the book as a whole is passable, and the ducks help it out."