The Story of Miss Moppet
Encyclopedia
The Story of Miss Moppet is a tale about teasing featuring a kitten and a mouse, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter
. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co
for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format
Miss Moppet, the story's eponymous main character, is a kitten teased by a mouse. While pursuing him she bumps her head on a cupboard. She then wraps a duster about her head, and sits before the fire "looking very ill". The curious mouse creeps closer, is captured, "and because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet". She ties him up in the duster and tosses him about. However, the mouse makes his escape, and once safely out of reach, dances a jig atop the cupboard.
Although, critically, The Story of Miss Moppet is considered one of Potter's lesser efforts, for young children it is valued as an introduction to books in general, and to the world of Peter Rabbit
. The character of Miss Moppet was released as a porcelain figurine in 1954 and a plush
toy in 1973. The book has been published in a Braille
version, translated into seven languages, and was released in an electronic format
in 2005. First editions in the original format are available through antiquarian booksellers.
Rupert William Potter and his wife Helen (Leech) Potter in London. She was educated by governess
es and tutors, and passed a quiet childhood reading, painting, drawing, tending a nursery menagerie of small animals, and visiting museums and art exhibitions. Her interests in the natural world and country life were nurtured with holidays in Scotland, the Lake District
, and Camfield Place, the Hertfordshire
home of her paternal grandparents.
Potter's adolescence was as quiet as her childhood. She matured into a spinsterish young woman whose parents groomed her to be a permanent resident and housekeeper in their home. She continued to paint and draw, and experienced her first professional artistic success in 1890 when she sold six illustrations of her pet rabbit to a greeting card publisher. She hoped to lead a useful life independent of her parents, and tentatively considered a career in mycology
, but the all-male scientific community regarded her as nothing more than an amateur and she abandoned fungi.
In 1900, Potter revised a tale that she had written for a child in 1893, fashioning it into a dummy book similar to the size and style of Helen Bannerman
's The Story of Little Black Sambo. Unable to find a buyer for her book, partially because the children's book market of the time depended on brightly coloured illustrations unlike Potter's line drawings, she decided to publish it privately in December 1901. Frederick Warne & Co
had once rejected the tale but, to maintain their position in the small format children's book market, reconsidered and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) following the recommendation of their prominent children's book artist L. Leslie Brooke
. Potter agreed to colour her pen and ink illustrations according to Warne's requirements, and she suggested Warne use the new Hentschel three-colour printing technique in the printing process for The Tale of Peter Rabbit
.
Potter continued to publish children's books with Warne, and by 1905 she found herself financially independent. Her books were selling well, and her income, combined with a small inheritance, allowed her to buy Hill Top
, a farm of 34 acres (13.8 ha) at Near Sawrey
in the Lake District in July of that year. When her longtime editor and fiancé Norman Warne
died a few weeks after their secret engagement, she became depressed, but went on to devote herself to her stories.
, she considered developing books for a younger audience. Three stories were the result: The Story of Miss Moppet, The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit and The Sly Old Cat. Inspired by George Cruikshank
's illustrations, she intended to have the stories published in "panoramic format in the style of Cruikshank's Comic Alphabet", as explained by Taylor. The panorama format consisted of "long strips of paper, on which the individual pages of pictures and text were arranged in order from left to right."
Potter was at Hill Top in July 1906 during the development of Miss Moppet, and the kitten she borrowed as a model from a mason from Windermere was a difficult subject. "[A]n exasperating model," Potter wrote, "I have borrowed a Kitten and I am rather glad of the opportunity of working at the drawings. It is very young and pretty and a most fearful pickle." Biographer Linda Lear explains that "pickle" was a word Potter used to describe "free-thinking exuberant people, like her cousin Caroline, or mischievous kittens and small children." Potter used the same drawings of the kitten as a model for her next book, The Tale of Tom Kitten
, which she dedicated in 1907 "to all Pickles—especially those that get upon my garden wall". Miss Moppet is one of Tom Kitten's sisters, and appears as a character in both books featuring him: The Tale of Tom Kitten and The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding (1908).
Potter was an admirer of American author Joel Chandler Harris
and created a series of plates in the 1890s for his Uncle Remus
stories, possibly in an attempt to find career direction. So deep was her admiration, Lear speculates the scene of Miss Moppet wrapping her head in the duster comes from a similar scene in an Uncle Remus tale in which Br'er Fox "feigns illness in a rocking chair, wrapped up with flannel". Potter was modeling her sketches from a young kitten and, wanting not to show cruelty, she wrote of the kitten: "She should catch him by the tail / less unpleasant". Children's literature scholar Peter Hunt writes that Potter was careful to protect her young audience from graphic details and she refused to depict death in her stories.
Ten thousand copies of The Story of Miss Moppet were released in a panorama format priced at a shilling
in November 1906, and another 10,000 copies in December 1906. There were no subsequent printings in the panorama format. The strip folded accordion-fashion into a grey cloth wallet measuring 108 by 89 mm (4.3 by 3.5 ). When opened, the panorama strip measured 108 by 2492 mm (4.3 by 98.1 ). As Lear writes, Potter "experimented with a panaroma format of fourteen pictures on one long strip of paper which folded into a wallet tied with a ribbon". Lear explains that the format "although popular with readers was ultimately unsuccessful, because shopkeepers found them difficult to keep folded". Potter referred to this fact late in life when she said, "Bad Rabbit and Moppet were originally printed on long strips—The shops sensibly refused to stock them because they got unrolled and so bad to fold up again". MacDonald points out that the fragile panorama format was inappropriate for very young children.
Twenty thousand copies of The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit were published in panorama format in November and December 1906 in exactly the same measurements as Miss Moppet. Both were later published in a small book 122 by 103 mm (4.8 by 4.1 ) format. The Sly Old Cat was scheduled for publication in 1907 but fell victim to the pressures exerted by booksellers. It was set aside, but was proposed for publication in 1916 as The Story of the Sly Old Cat. Potter's eyesight was failing and she refused to develop it. The story was published in book format with Potter's 1906 rough sketches for the first time in 1971. It is not included in the standard 23-volume Peter Rabbit library.
By 1916 Frederick Warne & Co had discontinued Miss Moppet in its panorama format, and republished the story in a book format that year. Potter illustrated a frontispiece of the kitten and mouse seated in profile, and a title page vignette of a mouse on all fours facing the reader for the book format. At 113 by, the book's dimensions were smaller than other Peter Rabbit books. In 1917, she suggested to her publisher that Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
be published in the smaller Miss Moppet format.
Miss Moppet ties a duster about her head and sits before the fire on a red hassock. The mouse's curiosity is piqued; he thinks she looks very ill and comes sliding down the bell-pull
. "Miss Moppet looks worse and worse." The mouse creeps nearer. Miss Moppet holds her head in her paws and peeks at the mouse through a hole in the duster. "The Mouse comes very close." Miss Moppet jumps and snags him by the tail.
"And because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet." The kitten ties the mouse up in the duster then tosses it about like a ball. The mouse peeks from the hole in the duster. In the last illustration but one, Miss Moppet is seated upright on her rump and staring at the reader. The duster lies opened and empty in her paws. "She forgot about that hole in the duster", and the mouse has escaped. He dances a jig safely out of Miss Moppet's reach atop the cupboard.
, a classics
professor at the University of Chicago
, in his article "An Aristotelian Analysis of Miss Moppet" finds the story follows the tenets of Aristotle
's Poetics, with a definite beginning (the unsuccessful attempt to catch the mouse), middle (Miss Moppet pretending to be hurt and catching the mouse), and end (Miss Moppet teasing the mouse and his escape). Redfield notes that Potter makes the outcome of the plot uncertain and creates parity between the characters, which are naturally predator and prey; Potter makes Miss Moppet "young, inexperienced, female, and a pet", while the mouse is "mature, courageous, male, and independent". Redfield praises Potter's skill as an author; she uses the hole in the duster twice—to allow Miss Moppet to catch the mouse, but then for him to escape her—and uses phrases particularly suited for a parent to read aloud to a child ("This is the mouse... "). Redfield concludes that while teasing is bad in the story—dangerous for the mouse, and cruel for the cat—Potter herself teases the reader in a good way, showing "us that teasing is a kind of loving when it is a kind of teaching. The poet plays with us, and by taking us through an unreal experience, teaches us what it is to live in the real world."
In her essay "Thoroughly Post-Victorian, Pre-Modern Beatrix" professor of English Katherine Chandler points out that Potter, unlike most Victorian writers of children's books, wrote original stories based on the realism of animal behaviour. Chandler notes that Potter avoids moralizing in her tales, making Miss Moppet nothing more than a story describing the natural behaviour of kittens. Potter's anthropormorphized animals are in fact slightly naughty, yet in their naughtiness the punishment is never the moral of the tale. At the end of Miss Moppet, the kitten is not punished and the mouse dances on the cupboard. This leads Chandler to quote literary scholar of modernism
Humphrey Carpenter
, "there is nothing in [Potter's] work that resembles the moral tale. In fact if might be argued that she is writing something pretty close to a series of immoral tales". In addition Chandler notes that Potter's economic use of prose presages modernism, comparing her writing to that of Ernest Hemingway
.
Ruth K. MacDonald, English and children's literature professor at New Mexico State University
, agrees, writing in Beatrix Potter that Miss Moppet demonstrates Potter's ability to pare text and illustrations to essentials noting that she worked best with more complicated plots, more complicated characters, and stories with specific settings rather than generalized backgrounds. Miss Moppet is a vignette
, she indicates, rather than the typical Potter tale of causality, extended plot, and variety of character, and depends upon the archetypal animosity between cat and mouse with the cat being the dominant character.
Miss Moppet was more successful than its companion piece The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit
according to M. Daphne Kutzer, an English professor at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh
and author of Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code (2003). Kutzer writes: "the illustrations are more fluid and the storyline more humorous and less moralistic". Potter was never at her best when writing for a clearly defined audience, Kutzer observes, and in writing a Victorian moral tale about teasing, Potter failed to completely engage the reader's imagination in either the story or the illustrations. Though, as MacDonald notes, Miss Moppet remains in the Potter canon
, and serves as a good initial approach to Potter's literature.
Potter died on 22 December 1943, and left her home and the original illustrations for almost all of her books, including Miss Moppet, to the National Trust
. Hilltop was opened to visitors in 1946, and displayed her original artwork there until 1985. After Potter's death, Frederick Warne & Co granted licences to various firms for the production of merchandise based on her characters. Beswick Pottery
of Longton, Staffordshire
released a porcelain figurine of Miss Moppet in 1954; the firm was eventually acquired by Royal Doulton
which continued to issue the figurine under the "Royal Albert" brand until it was discontinued in 2002. From 1980 to 1995 when it went out of business, Schmid & Co. of Toronto
and Randolph, Massachusetts
produced a Miss Moppet music box figurine. From 1983 to 1991, Schmid distributed two Miss Moppet Christmas ornaments (3 and 1.5 in (7.6 and 3.8 ) tall), made by the Italian firm ANRI. Stuffed toy manufacturers requested licensing for Potter's figures early in the 20th century; however she refused to grant permission, having been disappointed with the quality of the proposed stuffed toys. Frederick Warne & Co retained rights to all Potter merchandise and in 1973 granted a license to the Eden Toys company of Jersey City, New Jersey
to manufacture stuffed animals based on Potter's characters. Beginning in 1975 these included a plush
Miss Moppet, which was discontinued in 2001 when Eden Toys went out of business.
As of 2010, all 23 of Potter's small format books, including Miss Moppet, remain in print, and are available as a complete set in a presentation box. A 400-page omnibus edition is also available, as is an electronic format
, released in 2005. First edition and early edition Potter books are offered by antiquarian booksellers.
Although sold to Penguin Books
in 1984, Frederick Warne & Co remained a subsidiary company and continues to publish Potter's books. A 2002 Publishers Weekly
article, written for the centennial of the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, reported that Potter was considered one of the most popular classic writers, that anniversary editions of her work were published in 1993 and 2002, and the artwork has been "re-scanned to make the illustrations look fresher and brighter". The Frederick Warne name still appears on editions of Potter's books in English.
Languages that Miss Moppet has been translated into include Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Vietnamese, and a Braille
edition in English has been prepared. Miss Moppet was parodied by Nicholas Garland
in a policial cartoon in the 11 June 1976 issue of the New Statesman
. Margaret Thatcher
had lost a motion of no confidence
in the government of Prime Minister James Callaghan
, and Garland's cartoon copied the text and parodied four panels of the story, with Callaghan as the mouse who escapes Thatcher the kitten. In 1986, MacDonald observed that Potter's books had become a "traditional part of childhood in most only English-speaking countries and in many of the countries into whose languages Potter's books have been translated".
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co
Frederick Warne & Co
Frederick Warne & Co was a British publishing firm famous for children's books, particularly those of Beatrix Potter. It was founded in 1865 by a bookseller, who gave his own name to the firm.- History :...
for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format
Miss Moppet, the story's eponymous main character, is a kitten teased by a mouse. While pursuing him she bumps her head on a cupboard. She then wraps a duster about her head, and sits before the fire "looking very ill". The curious mouse creeps closer, is captured, "and because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet". She ties him up in the duster and tosses him about. However, the mouse makes his escape, and once safely out of reach, dances a jig atop the cupboard.
Although, critically, The Story of Miss Moppet is considered one of Potter's lesser efforts, for young children it is valued as an introduction to books in general, and to the world of Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit is a fictional anthropomorphic character in various children's stories by Beatrix Potter. He first appeared in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. Spinoff merchandise includes dishes, wallpaper, and dolls...
. The character of Miss Moppet was released as a porcelain figurine in 1954 and a plush
Plush
Plush is a textile having a cut nap or pile the same as fustian or velvet.Originally the pile of plush consisted of mohair or worsted yarn, but now silk by itself or with a cotton backing is used for plush, the distinction from velvet being found in the longer and less dense pile of plush...
toy in 1973. The book has been published in a Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
version, translated into seven languages, and was released in an electronic format
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
in 2005. First editions in the original format are available through antiquarian booksellers.
Background
Helen Beatrix Potter was born on 28 July 1866 to barristerBarrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
Rupert William Potter and his wife Helen (Leech) Potter in London. She was educated by governess
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
es and tutors, and passed a quiet childhood reading, painting, drawing, tending a nursery menagerie of small animals, and visiting museums and art exhibitions. Her interests in the natural world and country life were nurtured with holidays in Scotland, the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
, and Camfield Place, the Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
home of her paternal grandparents.
Potter's adolescence was as quiet as her childhood. She matured into a spinsterish young woman whose parents groomed her to be a permanent resident and housekeeper in their home. She continued to paint and draw, and experienced her first professional artistic success in 1890 when she sold six illustrations of her pet rabbit to a greeting card publisher. She hoped to lead a useful life independent of her parents, and tentatively considered a career in mycology
Mycology
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans as a source for tinder, medicinals , food and entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or...
, but the all-male scientific community regarded her as nothing more than an amateur and she abandoned fungi.
In 1900, Potter revised a tale that she had written for a child in 1893, fashioning it into a dummy book similar to the size and style of Helen Bannerman
Helen Bannerman
Helen Bannerman was the Scottish author of a number of children's books, the most notable being Little Black Sambo. She was born in Edinburgh and, because women were not admitted as students into British Universities, she sat external examinations set by the University of St. Andrews and attained...
's The Story of Little Black Sambo. Unable to find a buyer for her book, partially because the children's book market of the time depended on brightly coloured illustrations unlike Potter's line drawings, she decided to publish it privately in December 1901. Frederick Warne & Co
Frederick Warne & Co
Frederick Warne & Co was a British publishing firm famous for children's books, particularly those of Beatrix Potter. It was founded in 1865 by a bookseller, who gave his own name to the firm.- History :...
had once rejected the tale but, to maintain their position in the small format children's book market, reconsidered and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) following the recommendation of their prominent children's book artist L. Leslie Brooke
L. Leslie Brooke
Leonard Leslie Brooke was a British artist and writer who was born on 24 September 1862, in Birkenhead, England. His skillful and witty illustrations in Andrew Lang's Nursery Rhyme Book established his reputation as a leading children's book illustrator of pen-and-ink line drawings and watercolors...
. Potter agreed to colour her pen and ink illustrations according to Warne's requirements, and she suggested Warne use the new Hentschel three-colour printing technique in the printing process for The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea...
.
Potter continued to publish children's books with Warne, and by 1905 she found herself financially independent. Her books were selling well, and her income, combined with a small inheritance, allowed her to buy Hill Top
Hill Top, Cumbria
Hill Top is a 17th-century house in Near Sawrey near Hawkshead, in the English county of Cumbria. It is an example of Lakeland vernacular architecture with random stone walls and slate roof...
, a farm of 34 acres (13.8 ha) at Near Sawrey
Near Sawrey
Near Sawrey and Far Sawrey are two neighbouring villages in the Furness area of Cumbria. They are located in the Lake District between the town of Hawkshead and the lake of Windermere...
in the Lake District in July of that year. When her longtime editor and fiancé Norman Warne
Norman Warne
Norman Dalziel Warne was the third son of publisher Frederick Warne, and joined his father's firm Frederick Warne & Co. as editor. In 1900 the company rejected Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit, but eventually reconsidered and published the book in October 1902 to great success...
died a few weeks after their secret engagement, she became depressed, but went on to devote herself to her stories.
Development and publication
In 1906, as Potter was finishing The Tale of Mr. Jeremy FisherThe Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1906. Jeremy's origin lies in a letter she wrote to a child in 1893. She revised it in 1906, and moved its setting from the River Tay to the English Lake...
, she considered developing books for a younger audience. Three stories were the result: The Story of Miss Moppet, The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit and The Sly Old Cat. Inspired by George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...
's illustrations, she intended to have the stories published in "panoramic format in the style of Cruikshank's Comic Alphabet", as explained by Taylor. The panorama format consisted of "long strips of paper, on which the individual pages of pictures and text were arranged in order from left to right."
Potter was at Hill Top in July 1906 during the development of Miss Moppet, and the kitten she borrowed as a model from a mason from Windermere was a difficult subject. "[A]n exasperating model," Potter wrote, "I have borrowed a Kitten and I am rather glad of the opportunity of working at the drawings. It is very young and pretty and a most fearful pickle." Biographer Linda Lear explains that "pickle" was a word Potter used to describe "free-thinking exuberant people, like her cousin Caroline, or mischievous kittens and small children." Potter used the same drawings of the kitten as a model for her next book, The Tale of Tom Kitten
The Tale of Tom Kitten
The Tale of Tom Kitten is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1907. The tale is about manners and how children react to them. Tabitha Twitchit, a cat, invites friends for tea...
, which she dedicated in 1907 "to all Pickles—especially those that get upon my garden wall". Miss Moppet is one of Tom Kitten's sisters, and appears as a character in both books featuring him: The Tale of Tom Kitten and The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding (1908).
Potter was an admirer of American author Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years...
and created a series of plates in the 1890s for his Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881...
stories, possibly in an attempt to find career direction. So deep was her admiration, Lear speculates the scene of Miss Moppet wrapping her head in the duster comes from a similar scene in an Uncle Remus tale in which Br'er Fox "feigns illness in a rocking chair, wrapped up with flannel". Potter was modeling her sketches from a young kitten and, wanting not to show cruelty, she wrote of the kitten: "She should catch him by the tail / less unpleasant". Children's literature scholar Peter Hunt writes that Potter was careful to protect her young audience from graphic details and she refused to depict death in her stories.
Ten thousand copies of The Story of Miss Moppet were released in a panorama format priced at a shilling
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
in November 1906, and another 10,000 copies in December 1906. There were no subsequent printings in the panorama format. The strip folded accordion-fashion into a grey cloth wallet measuring 108 by 89 mm (4.3 by 3.5 ). When opened, the panorama strip measured 108 by 2492 mm (4.3 by 98.1 ). As Lear writes, Potter "experimented with a panaroma format of fourteen pictures on one long strip of paper which folded into a wallet tied with a ribbon". Lear explains that the format "although popular with readers was ultimately unsuccessful, because shopkeepers found them difficult to keep folded". Potter referred to this fact late in life when she said, "Bad Rabbit and Moppet were originally printed on long strips—The shops sensibly refused to stock them because they got unrolled and so bad to fold up again". MacDonald points out that the fragile panorama format was inappropriate for very young children.
Twenty thousand copies of The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit were published in panorama format in November and December 1906 in exactly the same measurements as Miss Moppet. Both were later published in a small book 122 by 103 mm (4.8 by 4.1 ) format. The Sly Old Cat was scheduled for publication in 1907 but fell victim to the pressures exerted by booksellers. It was set aside, but was proposed for publication in 1916 as The Story of the Sly Old Cat. Potter's eyesight was failing and she refused to develop it. The story was published in book format with Potter's 1906 rough sketches for the first time in 1971. It is not included in the standard 23-volume Peter Rabbit library.
By 1916 Frederick Warne & Co had discontinued Miss Moppet in its panorama format, and republished the story in a book format that year. Potter illustrated a frontispiece of the kitten and mouse seated in profile, and a title page vignette of a mouse on all fours facing the reader for the book format. At 113 by, the book's dimensions were smaller than other Peter Rabbit books. In 1917, she suggested to her publisher that Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes
Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes is a collection of nursery rhymes written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co. in October 1917. Potter had a lifelong fascination with rhymes, and proposed a book of short verses called Appley Dapply to Warne following the release...
be published in the smaller Miss Moppet format.
Plot
The tale opens with an illustration of a wide-eyed kitten: "This is a Pussy called Miss Moppet, she thinks she has heard a mouse!" The following illustration depicts a mouse wearing a pink bowtie and green jacket "peeping out behind the cupboard, and making fun of Miss Moppet. He is not afraid of a kitten." Miss Moppet darts at him, but misses and bumps her head on the cupboard. She thinks the cupboard very hard and rubs her nose. The mouse scurries to the top of the cupboard and watches her.Miss Moppet ties a duster about her head and sits before the fire on a red hassock. The mouse's curiosity is piqued; he thinks she looks very ill and comes sliding down the bell-pull
Bell pull
A bell pull is a woven textile, cord, handle, knob, or other object that connects with a bell or bell wire, and which rings a bell when pulled. Bell pulls are used to summon workers in homes of people who have butlers, maids or other servants, and often have a tassel at the bottom...
. "Miss Moppet looks worse and worse." The mouse creeps nearer. Miss Moppet holds her head in her paws and peeks at the mouse through a hole in the duster. "The Mouse comes very close." Miss Moppet jumps and snags him by the tail.
"And because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet." The kitten ties the mouse up in the duster then tosses it about like a ball. The mouse peeks from the hole in the duster. In the last illustration but one, Miss Moppet is seated upright on her rump and staring at the reader. The duster lies opened and empty in her paws. "She forgot about that hole in the duster", and the mouse has escaped. He dances a jig safely out of Miss Moppet's reach atop the cupboard.
Scholarly commentaries
James M. RedfieldJames M. Redfield
James M. Redfield is the Edward Olson Distinguished Service Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has made numerous contributions to current scholarship on Homer and Herodotus, probably the most notable of which is his book, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector ,...
, a classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, in his article "An Aristotelian Analysis of Miss Moppet" finds the story follows the tenets of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's Poetics, with a definite beginning (the unsuccessful attempt to catch the mouse), middle (Miss Moppet pretending to be hurt and catching the mouse), and end (Miss Moppet teasing the mouse and his escape). Redfield notes that Potter makes the outcome of the plot uncertain and creates parity between the characters, which are naturally predator and prey; Potter makes Miss Moppet "young, inexperienced, female, and a pet", while the mouse is "mature, courageous, male, and independent". Redfield praises Potter's skill as an author; she uses the hole in the duster twice—to allow Miss Moppet to catch the mouse, but then for him to escape her—and uses phrases particularly suited for a parent to read aloud to a child ("This is the mouse... "). Redfield concludes that while teasing is bad in the story—dangerous for the mouse, and cruel for the cat—Potter herself teases the reader in a good way, showing "us that teasing is a kind of loving when it is a kind of teaching. The poet plays with us, and by taking us through an unreal experience, teaches us what it is to live in the real world."
In her essay "Thoroughly Post-Victorian, Pre-Modern Beatrix" professor of English Katherine Chandler points out that Potter, unlike most Victorian writers of children's books, wrote original stories based on the realism of animal behaviour. Chandler notes that Potter avoids moralizing in her tales, making Miss Moppet nothing more than a story describing the natural behaviour of kittens. Potter's anthropormorphized animals are in fact slightly naughty, yet in their naughtiness the punishment is never the moral of the tale. At the end of Miss Moppet, the kitten is not punished and the mouse dances on the cupboard. This leads Chandler to quote literary scholar of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...
, "there is nothing in [Potter's] work that resembles the moral tale. In fact if might be argued that she is writing something pretty close to a series of immoral tales". In addition Chandler notes that Potter's economic use of prose presages modernism, comparing her writing to that of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
.
Ruth K. MacDonald, English and children's literature professor at New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University at Las Cruces , is a major land-grant university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States...
, agrees, writing in Beatrix Potter that Miss Moppet demonstrates Potter's ability to pare text and illustrations to essentials noting that she worked best with more complicated plots, more complicated characters, and stories with specific settings rather than generalized backgrounds. Miss Moppet is a vignette
Vignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
, she indicates, rather than the typical Potter tale of causality, extended plot, and variety of character, and depends upon the archetypal animosity between cat and mouse with the cat being the dominant character.
Miss Moppet was more successful than its companion piece The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit
The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit
The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit is a children’s book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in December 1906. The book tells of a bad little rabbit who is fired upon by a hunter and loses his tail and whiskers...
according to M. Daphne Kutzer, an English professor at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh
State University of New York at Plattsburgh
The State University of New York at Plattsburgh is a four-year, public liberal arts college in Plattsburgh, New York. The college was founded in 1889 and opened in 1890. The college is currently part of the State University of New York system and is accredited by the Middle States Association of...
and author of Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code (2003). Kutzer writes: "the illustrations are more fluid and the storyline more humorous and less moralistic". Potter was never at her best when writing for a clearly defined audience, Kutzer observes, and in writing a Victorian moral tale about teasing, Potter failed to completely engage the reader's imagination in either the story or the illustrations. Though, as MacDonald notes, Miss Moppet remains in the Potter canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
, and serves as a good initial approach to Potter's literature.
Merchandise
Potter asserted her tales would one day be nursery classics, and part of the "longevity of her books comes from strategy", writes Potter biographer Ruth MacDonald. She was the first to exploit the commercial possibilities of her characters and tales; between 1903 and 1905 these included a Peter Rabbit stuffed toy, an unpublished board game, and nursery wallpaper. Similar "side-shows" (as she termed the ancillary merchandise) were produced throughout her life. For a number of years Potter designed Christmas cards with characters from her books that were sold to raise money for charities.Potter died on 22 December 1943, and left her home and the original illustrations for almost all of her books, including Miss Moppet, to the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
. Hilltop was opened to visitors in 1946, and displayed her original artwork there until 1985. After Potter's death, Frederick Warne & Co granted licences to various firms for the production of merchandise based on her characters. Beswick Pottery
Beswick Pottery
J. W. Beswick was a pottery manufacturer, founded in 1892 by James Wright Beswick and his sons John and Gilbert in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. They are chiefly known for producing high-quality porcelain figurines such as farm animals and Beatrix Potter characters and have become highly sought after in...
of Longton, Staffordshire
Longton, Staffordshire
Longton is a southern district of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, and is known locally as the "Neck End" of the city. Longton is one of the six towns of "the Potteries" which formed the City of Stoke-on-Trent in 1925.-History:...
released a porcelain figurine of Miss Moppet in 1954; the firm was eventually acquired by Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
The Royal Doulton Company is an English company producing tableware and collectables, dating to 1815. Operating originally in London, its reputation grew in The Potteries, where it was a latecomer compared to Spode, Wedgwood and Minton...
which continued to issue the figurine under the "Royal Albert" brand until it was discontinued in 2002. From 1980 to 1995 when it went out of business, Schmid & Co. of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and Randolph, Massachusetts
Randolph, Massachusetts
The Town of Randolph is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 32,112. Randolph adopted a new charter effective January 2010 providing for a council-manager form of government instead of the traditional town meeting...
produced a Miss Moppet music box figurine. From 1983 to 1991, Schmid distributed two Miss Moppet Christmas ornaments (3 and 1.5 in (7.6 and 3.8 ) tall), made by the Italian firm ANRI. Stuffed toy manufacturers requested licensing for Potter's figures early in the 20th century; however she refused to grant permission, having been disappointed with the quality of the proposed stuffed toys. Frederick Warne & Co retained rights to all Potter merchandise and in 1973 granted a license to the Eden Toys company of Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...
to manufacture stuffed animals based on Potter's characters. Beginning in 1975 these included a plush
Plush
Plush is a textile having a cut nap or pile the same as fustian or velvet.Originally the pile of plush consisted of mohair or worsted yarn, but now silk by itself or with a cotton backing is used for plush, the distinction from velvet being found in the longer and less dense pile of plush...
Miss Moppet, which was discontinued in 2001 when Eden Toys went out of business.
Reprints and translations
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
, released in 2005. First edition and early edition Potter books are offered by antiquarian booksellers.
Although sold to Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
in 1984, Frederick Warne & Co remained a subsidiary company and continues to publish Potter's books. A 2002 Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
article, written for the centennial of the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, reported that Potter was considered one of the most popular classic writers, that anniversary editions of her work were published in 1993 and 2002, and the artwork has been "re-scanned to make the illustrations look fresher and brighter". The Frederick Warne name still appears on editions of Potter's books in English.
Languages that Miss Moppet has been translated into include Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Vietnamese, and a Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
edition in English has been prepared. Miss Moppet was parodied by Nicholas Garland
Nicholas Garland
Nicholas Withycombe Garland is a political cartoonist for the Daily Telegraph. He had previously drawn for The New Statesman, The Spectator and The Independent....
in a policial cartoon in the 11 June 1976 issue of the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
. Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
had lost a motion of no confidence
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
in the government of Prime Minister James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
, and Garland's cartoon copied the text and parodied four panels of the story, with Callaghan as the mouse who escapes Thatcher the kitten. In 1986, MacDonald observed that Potter's books had become a "traditional part of childhood in most only English-speaking countries and in many of the countries into whose languages Potter's books have been translated".