The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's Garden
Beatrix Potter printed Peter Rabbit herself in December 1901, a year before Frederick Warne published it. Her private edition had forty-one pictures, all but one in black and white. When Warne took the book in 1902, colour was part of the bargain — but so was a shorter book. Eleven scenes were crossed out, and three more disappeared from later printings. Twenty-seven pictures remained.
This edition puts all forty-one back, and puts them in colour for the first time. Her black-and-white originals, coloured plate by plate — including the fourteen pictures missing from the book you already know.
Nine annotations trace what changed between 1901 and 1902, and why: the cut scenes, the redrawn pictures, the garden Beatrix actually kept in her head as she wrote. Ten letters from the garden — the Sanctuary's own miniature post, in the spirit of the notes Beatrix once sent children from Peter and his neighbours — close the book.
Published for her 160th birthday, 28 July 2026.
Happy birthday, Beatrix!
Buy on Amazon→❦ This is the Sanctuary's own edition — researched, coloured and annotated here. As an Amazon Associate, we also earn from qualifying purchases through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Particulars
- This edition
- The Annotated Sanctuary Edition, published 28 July 2026 for Beatrix Potter's 160th birthday
- Pictures
- All forty-one from the 1901 private edition, newly coloured — including fourteen not in the familiar 1902 book
- Annotations
- Nine, tracing what Warne changed between 1901 and 1902, and why
- Also inside
- The Cabbage Correspondence — ten miniature letters in Potter's own tradition of posting notes from her characters
- Format
- Hardcover and paperback, both with premium colour interior. Both live now.
Curiosities
- ❦Four of the fourteen restored pictures vanished even later than 1902 — dropped from the fifth printing to make room for coloured endpapers. Among them: Mrs McGregor with the pie, and Peter going "lippity-lippity" home.
- ❦The 1902 pictures are not the 1901 drawings with paint added. Potter tried colouring a few of the originals, then decided the trade edition needed newly drawn artwork instead — same scenes, rebuilt in watercolour.
- ❦The private edition's only colour picture in 1901 was the frontispiece, printed separately by Hentschel of Fleet Street using the three-colour process.
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