The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher

Mr. Jeremy Fisher, a frog of independent means, sets out one rainy afternoon on his lily-pad boat to catch some minnows for his dinner. He has invited two friends — Sir Isaac Newton the newt, and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise — and he is determined to provide. He catches a stickleback. The stickleback bites him. Worse comes after.

The story is older than Peter Rabbit. Beatrix first drew nine pen-and-ink sketches of "A Frog he would a-fishing go" in 1894 — twenty-eight years old, unpublished, stubborn — and sold them to a children's-annual publisher named Ernest Nister for one guinea. He printed them in a book called Comical Customers. Eight years later, after Peter Rabbit had become famous, Beatrix bought everything back: drawings, copyright, zinc blocks. Six pounds.

She redrew the pictures, painted beautiful new studies of water lilies, and turned the small frog into a gentleman with a mackintosh and overshoes. The book was dedicated to Stephanie Hyde-Parker of Melford Hall — the cousin's child who had nearly received Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. "For Stephanie from Cousin B."

The cover shown is the original edition. Amazon carries the copies in print today.

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