The Tale of Mr. Tod - Composition and Publication

Composition and Publication

Influenced in part by the Uncle Remus stories, Mr. Tod is longer than Potter's earlier tales, and set in the Sawrey countryside at Bull Banks and Oatmeal Crag, two fields Potter acquired with Castle Farm in 1909. Pen and ink sketches outnumber the watercolors.

Potter's publisher Harold Warne received the text of Mr. Tod in November 1911, though Potter had written the tale some time in the past. Warne had doubts about the name 'tod' for a fox, but Potter responded:

"Tod" is surely a very common name for a fox? It is probably Saxon, it was the word in ordinary use in Scotland a few years ago, probably is still amongst the country people. In the same way "brock" or "gray" is the country name for a badger. I should call them "brocks" – both names are used in Westmoreland. "Brockholes", "Graythwaite" are examples of place names; also Broxbourne and Brockhampton "Hey quoth the Tod/its a braw bright night!/The wind's in the west/and the moon shines bright"—Mean to say you never heard that?"

The tale is about undesirable elements of society. Warne objected to Potter's opening paragraph: "I am quite tired of making goody goody books about nice people. I will make a book about two disagreeable people, called Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod." He altered the text to read, "I have made many books about well-behaved people." Potter responded:

If it were not impertinent to lecture one's publisher—you are a great deal too much afraid of the public, for whom I have never cared one tuppenny-button. I have always thought the opening paragraph distinctly good, because it gets away from "once upon a time".

She teased him about the name Bull Banks and his sensitivity to less than genteel expressions: "One thinks nothing of bulls and tups in the farming world; but after you objected to cigars it occurred to me to wonder." There were no objections, and the tale was finished in July.

The spring of 1912 was emotionally unsettling for Potter; her father was ill and severe strikes across the country caused hardships. In April 1912, she managed to get away from London for Hill Top to execute background drawings for the tale. By July, most of the colour blocks were finished, but Potter was concerned about the anatomy of the fox, and checked photographs and reference books in the Natural History Museum in an attempt to distinguish the true English red fox (Vulpes vulpes) from other species. The book was finished by the end of July when she left for holiday at Lake Windemere. Completion of the tale had taken longer than usual because her time had been shared with participation in a campaign opposing hydroplanes on Lake Windemere and the proposed construction of an aeroplane factory near the lake.

The Tale of Mr. Tod was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1912, and dedicated to Francis William, the two-year-old son of her cousin Caroline (Hutton) Clark, who had married the Laird of Ulva and was living and farming on a small island off the coast of Mull: "For Francis William of Ulva – someday!"

During the course of the tale's development, Warne proposed launching Mr. Tod as the first in a new series of tales in slightly larger formats with elaborate bindings to accommodate wider spines. Potter objected. She did not want to become involved in a new series; her eyesight was failing, and she had grown weary of writing. She complained of having difficulty in producing "fresh short stories", and believed children preferred little change in the books. Nonetheless, Mr. Tod, and the next book, The Tale of Pigling Bland were published in a larger format with elaborate bindings as "Series II, New Style". Potter disliked the new endpaper depicting Samuel Whiskers sticking up a giant poster while watched by other animal characters, thinking it too like a railway advertisement. Eventually, the larger format and new designation were dropped, and the ordinary binding adopted for reprints.