Think you know everything about... Beatrix Potter

 Beatrix Potter: Drawn To Nature opened at the V&A in London this weekend and is running until September 25.

QUESTIONS: 

1. The author and illustrator once wrote a scientific paper about the reproduction of:

A. Puddle ducks

B. Tadpoles

C. Fungi

D. Squirrels

2. Peter Rabbit is the world’s oldest licensed character. Which of these did Potter agree to have her illustrations on?

A. Newspaper comic strip

B. Wallpaper

C. Toilet paper

D. Chocolate wrappers

Beatrix Potter: Drawn To Nature opened at the V&A in London this weekend and is running until September 25 (pictured is Beatrix Potter¿s character Peter Rabbit)

Beatrix Potter: Drawn To Nature opened at the V&A in London this weekend and is running until September 25 (pictured is Beatrix Potter’s character Peter Rabbit) 

3. TRUE OR FALSE: Potter tried and failed to get Walt Disney to adapt her work.

4. Potter was the first woman elected to lead:

A. Her local sheep breeding association.

B. The Society of Illustrators.

C. The Hedgehog Appreciation Society.

D. Her local fox hunt.

5. An identical brick-for-brick replica of her house was built in:

A. New Zealand

B. Japan

C. Disneyland Paris

D. South Africa

6. TRUE OR FALSE: Peter Rabbit was the first character from children’s literature ever to appear on a UK coin.

ANSWERS: 

1) C. Fungi

After becoming engrossed in creating watercolours of fungi, Beatrix Potter developed her own theory of how they reproduced and wrote a paper, ‘On The Germination Of The Spores Of Agaricineae’. A man presented it to the Linnean Society on her behalf because women were not allowed to attend its meetings.

2) B. Wallpaper

She personally oversaw the Peter-themed wallpaper, saying: ‘The idea of rooms covered with badly drawn rabbits is appalling.’ Peter became the world’s oldest licensed character when Potter patented a doll in 1903. Later, she approved a range of slippers, handkerchiefs and china tea sets.

3) FALSE

In 1936, Disney asked for her permission to turn Peter Rabbit into an animated film. She refused, saying her illustrations weren’t suitable for blowing up to big-screen size. Her biographer said the problem with the screen characters ‘is that they become cutesy, which is really quite un-Potter’.

4) A.

Her local sheep breeding association. Potter, a leading farmer in the Lake District, won prizes for breeding sheep. She was the first woman elected president of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association, but died before she took up the chair.

5) B. Japan

In 2006, a full-size replica of Potter’s Hill Top Farm in Cumbria, which she bought with the proceeds from Peter Rabbit, was built at a zoo near Tokyo.

6) TRUE

A 50p was released in 2016 to mark 150 years since Potter’s birth. It is one of the rarest 50ps in circulation and has fetched as much £1,000 on eBay. 

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