While I enjoyed “The dystopian world of Beatrix Potter” (11 May), she herself may have had some comments to make. In his essay “Beatrix Potter”, Graham Greene traces her books’ development, from what he calls the “vintage years in comedy”, from 1904 to 1907, which started with Two Bad Mice and Peter Rabbit, to the “great near-tragedies” which included Mr Tod’ and Samuel Whiskers. He attributes this darkening to some sort of emotional ordeal. By 1930, however, with Little Pig Robinson, he says she had reached her “island, her escape from tragedy to safe serene fancy”. A note by Greene adds: “On the publication of this essay I received a somewhat acid letter from Mrs Potter correcting certain details. Little Pig Robinson, although the last published of her books, was in fact the first written. She denied that there had been any emotional disturbance at the time she was writing Mr Tod: she was suffering however from the after-effects of flu. In conclusion, she deprecated sharply the ‘Freudian school’ of criticism.”
Judy Turner
Malvern, Worcestershire
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