The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
Benjamin Bunny is a father now, married to Flopsy, with six little Flopsy Bunnies of his own. The bunnies eat too much lettuce, fall asleep, and wake up in a sack — Mr. McGregor's sack. The story is about how a small mouse, Mrs. Tittlemouse, helps where parents cannot.
Beatrix wrote it in the spring of 1909 while staying with her uncle and aunt at Gwaynynog, a fine old house in North Wales. The garden in the book is theirs — red-brick walls, apricots, espaliered apple trees, old-fashioned flowers growing among the currant bushes. She painted backgrounds straight from life and added the rabbits later.
The opening line teaches a long word — *soporific* — because Beatrix believed children liked unusual words and rose to meet them. She was right. A century later, children still know what *soporific* means, mostly because of this book.
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Particulars
- Trade edition
- 1909, Frederick Warne & Co.
- Setting
- The walled garden at Gwaynynog, Denbigh, North Wales (her uncle's home)
- Dedication
- "For all little friends of Mr. McGregor and Peter and Benjamin"
- Manuscript
- Painted on location at Gwaynynog, March 1909
- Position in series
- Third in the Rabbit Saga
Curiosities
- ❦Beatrix loved the word "soporific" and used it despite her publisher's worry. She thought children liked unusual words.
- ❦Of the Gwaynynog garden she wrote: "two-thirds surrounded by a red-brick wall with many apricots, and an inner circle of old grey apple trees on wooden espaliers… where bright old fashioned flowers grow amongst the currant bushes."
- ❦Benjamin and Flopsy have six children — per the miniature letters, "two boy-rabbits, followed by three girl-rabbits, and finally another boy-rabbit."
- ❦An early picture had a notice reading "Peter Rabbit & Mother — Florists — Gardens neatly razed. Borders devastated by the night or year." It was quietly removed for foreign translations.
- ❦Thirty years later, when an admirer claimed Gwaynynog must also be Peter Rabbit's garden, Beatrix shrugged: "What does it matter? Let her print it. I won't contradict."
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