Helen Beatrix Potter Heelis

Helen Beatrix Potter Heelis was born July 28th, 1866 and was to become one of history's greatest children's writers, penning nearly two dozen children's books with classic animal characters such as Peter Rabbit. The book, The Tale of Beatrix Poor, has Beatrix as its main focus. Beatrix was born into a family of inherited wealth and grew up a lonely and isolated child, taught and reared primarily through governesses. Her happiest times as a child were in her summers in the Scottish countryside, where she and her brother Bertram cataloged plants and animals and learned to draw. This began Beatrix's lifelong love of animals and nature, which would lead her to do scientific work on fungi, naturalist painting and children's writing.

Her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was compiled from a series of letters she wrote to the child of a friend of hers...