Composition and Publication
In July 1903, Potter suggested to her publisher Frederick Warne & Co. that the book to follow The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester ought to be something less complex than the two previous productions. She had several possible stories in mind and outlined them for the firm, but was anxious to settle on a choice as quickly as possible to guide her sketching while on holiday. It was decided between Potter and her publisher that one of the two books for 1904 would be Benjamin Bunny. Benjamin Bunny had been mentioned in the manuscript of the privately printed edition of Peter Rabbit but had been dropped as irrelevant to the tale. A picture of his father was included in the private edition although he has no part in the story.
Potter was sensitive to the beginnings and endings of her books and usually avoided the conventional at those key places. The publisher did not like the Benjamin Bunny ending, but she refused to alter it to their suggested "happily ever after" because such an ending in her estimation was "rather trite" and "inexact". She suggested the last paragraph as it now appears in the book with the comment, "I would like the book to end with the word 'rabbit-tobacco', it is a rather fine word." She rewrote several other passages including twice rewriting the passage depicting Mr. McGregor's discovery of the cat locked in the greenhouse.
Summering at Fawe Park in Keswick, Cumbria with her parents, Potter filled her sketchbook with pictures of the estate's several gardens including the kitchen garden and its greenhouses, cold frames, potting shed, and espaliered fruit trees. Her father photographed Fawe Park and Potter probably used his photographs (or her own) as an aid in her work. The picture of Old Mr. Bunny attacking the cat did not satisfy her publisher, and she redrew it as she did the picture of Benjamin and Peter standing on the garden wall. In Peter Rabbit, Mr. McGregor's garden was in Perthshire, but in Benjamin Bunny, the rabbit clan and the garden setting were moved to the Lake District, where they remained for The Tale of Mr. Tod, the final book of the Peter Rabbit saga.
During her London winter, Potter developed her work, and, by the middle of June 1904, Benjamin Bunny was almost finished. Many of the sketches from her Fawe Park holiday were little altered in their migration to the book, and, upon completion of the work, Potter declared she was relieved to be finished with the rabbits.
The book was dedicated to "the children of Sawrey from old Mr. Bunny". Beginnings and endings of tales were important to Potter and she specified Benjamin Bunny was to end with the words, "rabbit tobacco" – a term from Uncle Remus she had made her own.
Twenty thousand copies were published and released in September 1904. Within a month, reprints were ordered, and another ten thousand copies were printed at year's end. Much to her embarrassment, Potter realized "muffettees" (a muff worn at the wrist) was misspelled, but the error was not corrected until the third printing.
Read more about this topic: The Tale Of Benjamin Bunny
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