It’s not often an author has a new work published more than 100 years after it was written,…
…but Beatrix Potter fans young and old have got a treat in store after a new story from the beloved children’s author was discovered. The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots features some of the author’s most popular characters including mischievous Peter Rabbit, motherly Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and villainous Mr Tod. The manuscript, discovered from a reference in an out-of-print biography contained just one drawing so the new book has been illustrated by none-other than Quentin Blake, famous for his collaborations with Roald Dahl.
Over 100 million Beatrix Potter books have been sold worldwide, translated into 35 languages, and the equivalent of one book is sold somewhere every fifteen seconds. The last Beatrix Potter book was published over 40 years ago, although in 2014 British actor Emma Thompson wrote best selling The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit in the style of Beatrix Potter.
The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots was discovered written in old school notebooks in the archive at the Victoria and Albert museum. In a letter to her publisher Potter described her new character as ‘a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads something of a double life’. An older, slower and portlier Peter Rabbit also makes an appearance. The book was never finished after ‘interruptions began’ including the outbreak of First World War, Potter’s marriage, sheep farming and illness. It remained unpublished after Potter died in 1943.
The book will be published in September, marking the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth. Expect it to fly off the shelves.