The Fairy Caravan
A travelling circus invisible to humans rolls quietly through the Lakeland fells. Pony Billy pulls the caravan, Sandy the terrier guards it, Charles the cockerel announces the dawn, and a long-haired guinea-pig called Tuppenny sells tickets. Each chapter is a different story told by — or about — one of the animals. It is part novel, part scrapbook, part farewell.
Beatrix never planned to write it. She had been jotting down "scribbles" about her farm animals for years. Then, on a walk above Troutbeck Tongue, she watched four wild fell-ponies cantering in a circle round a stunted thorn — "to the music of Piper Wind" — and saw, in the muddy drove-road, a "multitude of un-shod footprints, much too small for horses." She wondered if a fairy caravan had passed. The book grew from there. Her American publisher, Alexander McKay, persuaded her to gather everything into a single volume.
The book was meant for America only. Beatrix thought the stories were "too personal — too autobiographical" to print in England, so she had a hundred sets of sheets shipped to a small Ambleside printer for private English binding. On the title page she used her married name: Beatrix Heelis.
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- First edition (USA)
- 1929, Alexander McKay, Philadelphia
- English private edition
- 1929, George Middleton, Ambleside (100 copies, signed Beatrix Heelis)
- Setting
- The Lakeland fells: Troutbeck Tongue, Hill Top, Codlin Croft Orchard, Wilfin Beck
- Dedication
- To Henry P. Coolidge, an American boy from Boston who visited Beatrix at Hill Top
- Origin
- Compiled from years of "scribbles" about her own farm animals; The Tale of Tuppenny (1903) became Chapter 1
Curiosities
- ❦The little dog Sandy was named after the first dog Beatrix ever owned — "but he is really drawn from a much better behaved little dog called 'Kiltie' who belonged to my next door neighbour."
- ❦Charles the cockerel was Beatrix's favourite bird at Hill Top, named by the old mason James Walker. "As soon as old Walker opened his dinner-box, Charles hopped on to his knee, his shoulder, or his head! He never failed to receive a bit of pasty or cake."
- ❦When Charles died in November 1929, Beatrix mounted his feathers on notepaper: "This is a feather of poor old Charles — who died lamented and respected on November 17th 1929. He was 8½ years old, and had never been beaten in battle."
- ❦The book begins with the wild ponies above Troutbeck — "All by myself alone, I watched a weird dance… Round and round in measured canter went four of the wild fell ponies. Round and round then checked and turned, round and round reversed; dainty hoofs, arched necks, manes tossing and tails streaming."
- ❦Frederick Warne were "very disappointed" it was published in America only. Beatrix, by way of compensation, gave them Little Pig Robinson the following year.
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