The Story of Miss Moppet - SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR

Frederick Warne and Co., Ltd.. [c.1932]. A presentation copy of one of the beloved author's most charming tales, the story of a kitten and a mouse. Potter has inscribed the book on the title: "For Jean / with love from Cousin B. / July 30th [19]32." 16mo, later impression. 15 coloured illustrations by Beatrix Potter, original boards, contents disbound, binding worn and soiled, lower joint split, lacking foot of spine.  

The recipient of this copy was Jean Duke, the daughter of Kenneth and Stephanie Duke (née Hyde-Parker). Beatrix Potter was a relative of the Hyde Parker family, to whom she was known as Cousin Beatie, and stayed often at their home, Melford Hall in Suffolk. Now open to the public, Melford Hall has a Beatrix Potter Room, displaying watercolors, drawings, and stuffed animals she gave to the Parker family.

The very simple plot of The Story of Miss Moppet (a mouse teases Miss Moppet, a kitten, who then teases him in return by tossing him around in a tied-up duster until he escapes) was aimed at a younger audience than Potter's earlier successes such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and was developed alongside two other stories for young children: The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit and The Sly Old Cat.  Both Miss Moppet and Fierce Bad Rabbit were first published in November 1906, in an experimental panorama format with long, folding pages. When this version proved unsuccessful, they were reprinted in Potter's usual small book format. The Story of the Sly Old Cat, however, was set aside and not published until after Potter's death.

Scholar Katherine Chandler points out that Potter, unlike most Victorian writers of children's books, wrote original stories based on the realism of animal behaviour. Chandler notes that Potter avoids moralizing in her tales, making Miss Moppet nothing more than a story describing the natural behavior of kittens. Potter's anthropomorphized animals are in fact slightly naughty, yet in their naughtiness the punishment is never the moral of the tale. (14407)

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