Show me the bunny!
QUESTION Did Beatrix Potter self-publish her first books?
This was the case with The Tale Of Peter Rabbit and The Tailor Of Gloucester.
Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866. she had a solitary childhood, enriched by her many pets — in particular her rabbits Benjamin Bouncer, a lover of crispy, buttered toast, and his successor, a Belgian buck rabbit named Peter Piper — who would accompany Beatrix on her walks.
she spent holidays in scotland and the Lake District, where she fell in love with the landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted.
she would pen letters to friends, illustrating them with wildlife sketches.
A number of these were written to the children of her former governess Annie Carter Moore, particularly to Moore’s sickly eldest son Noel.
in september 1893, while she was on holiday at Eastwood in Dunkeld, Perthshire, she wrote Noel a short story: ‘about four little rabbits whose names were — Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.’
in 1900, Potter created a small illustrated children’s book based on her four rabbits. she sent the book to six publishers, each of whom rejected it because Potter was insistent that the book be small enough for a child to hold while the publishers wanted a larger format, so they could charge more for it.
On December 16, 1901, the 35-year-old Potter used her personal savings to print privately 250 copies of The Tale Of Peter Rabbit. Within a year, Frederick Warne and Co. (a publisher that had originally rejected the book) signed her.
Again there was a disagreement over the format of her next book, The Tailor Of Gloucester. This time she self-published 500 copies. Warne had by this time given in.
in August 1903, Frederick Warne and Co. published The Tale Of squirrel Nutkin and a few months later released a new version of The Tailor Of Gloucester. The deal was to save the publishing house and revolutionise the way children’s books were sold. Erica Wright, Leicester.
QUESTION What caused our longest recession, between 800BC and 600BC?
WE LEARN of the three ages of pre-history — the stone Age, Bronze Age and iron Age. At school we are told that the end of the Bronze Age in Britain and the beginning of the iron Age was 800BC.
The change, of course, wasn’t sudden: iron was introduced slowly, only fully replacing bronze as the favoured material for tools and weapons by around 550BC.
But there were significant changes taking place around 800BC. The previous 100 to 150 years or so is characterised by a time when bronze was so plentiful that huge quantities were being consigned to the ground in ‘ hoards’ or even thrown into lakes and rivers — presumably as offerings to the gods.
But from 800BC the practice of disposing of bronze in this way rapidly declined — as did Britain’s population.
Climatologists point to a sharp decline in temperature, where much wetter conditions prevailed. however recent studies have dated this change quite precisely to 750BC, and the ‘Bronze Crisis’ began at least two generations before.
This points to socio-economic factors. Communities producing bronze had established trade links into Europe, in order to obtain copper and tin.
Control of these networks enabled the growth of hierarchical societies controlled by a warrior elite.
As iron production took over, these networks collapsed, leading to conflict. A combination of unstable social conditions, coupled with climate change, probably led to the population collapse and recession at the end of the Bronze Age.
By around 550BC, the decline had ended and the climate had stabilised. iron tools led to an agricultural boom and a successful new economy.
Peter Crawford, Ambleside, Cumbria.
QUESTION An amusing car advert features a couple buying a vehicle that’s too big for their garage. Has anyone had a similar experience?
IN THE early Eighties, i was asked by a structural engineer to prepare an architectural survey for an old two- storey house, possibly 17th century, in a remote area near the village of Warbleton, East sussex. The house had electricity and a telephone but no garage.
The garage was to be built of brick under a tiled roof and attached to the house on the site of a lean-to shed of corrugated iron.
having surveyed the property, i set to work on the drawings with the garage being of standard size, but, soon after, the engineer told me the owner had bought a new, and very long, Mercedes-Benz.
The dimensions were given and i was asked to amend my drawings to reflect this change, which i did. On completion, the drawings were passed to the engineer leading the project.
in due course, a contractor was appointed and set to work. some months later the project was complete and the new owner turned up in his Mercedes. When he tried his new garage out for size he was horrified to find at least three feet of the car hanging out of the door.
What had gone wrong? The contractor had used the engineer’s drawings but the engineer had forgotten to amend them to my redesign. so the entire garage had to be demolished, a new portion of concrete slab laid and the garage rebuilt — all at the engineer’s expense.
Digby Stevenson, Pevensey, East Sussex.
QUESTION Can anyone explain Einstein’s famous ‘who owns the fish?’ riddle?
FURTHER to the riddle in yesterday’s edition, the answer is the German.
Michael Butler, Wolverhampton, IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. You can also email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published, but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.