50 Fun Facts About Peter Rabbit

Why does Peter Rabbit's mother warn her four children to stay out of Mr McGregor's garden?

Their father ended in a pie: Mrs McGregor baked him after he was caught there, which is why old Mrs Rabbit sends her children down the lane instead.

In 1936, which film-maker asked Potter if he could make a Peter Rabbit film, and was told no?

Walt Disney went away empty-handed: Potter would not hand over her characters, and Disney never did make a Potter film.

In 1903, Potter made and patented the first ever piece of Peter Rabbit merchandise. What was it?

A soft toy of Peter, stitched and patented by Potter herself, was the first licensed character in history, a quarter of a century before Mickey Mouse.

In 1897 a man read Potter's science paper to the Linnean Society, because women could not attend. What was it about?

Fungi fascinated her: she painted hundreds of them and worked out how their spores germinate, and in 1997 the Linnean Society apologised for how it had treated her.

Potter's teenage diary could not be read until Leslie Linder worked it out in 1958. How was it written?

A secret code of her own devising hid the journal she kept from 1881 to 1897; Linder needed five years to crack it.

Which country has a full-size copy of Potter's farmhouse, and four in five people there know Peter Rabbit?

Japan has a copy of Potter's farmhouse and a Peter Rabbit theme park; children there meet the stories at school, and many later tour the Lake District.

In the 2018 film Peter Rabbit, which fruit do the rabbits throw at Thomas McGregor, who is allergic to it?

Blackberries land in his mouth and send him reaching for an EpiPen; allergy groups called it bullying and Sony said it regretted the scene.

To mark 150 years since Potter's birth, Peter Rabbit appeared in 2016 on which British coin?

50p pieces carried Peter Rabbit from 2016, with more Potter characters following in 2017 and 2018, sending collectors rummaging through their change.

Which department store has sold Peter Rabbit goods since at least 1910 and employs Thomas McGregor in the 2018 film?

Harrods listed Potter's characters in its catalogues from 1910, and the film's Thomas McGregor works in the Harrods toy department before he inherits the garden.

Hiding from Mr McGregor, Peter jumps into what, only to sneeze because it is half full of water?

A watering can would have hidden him nicely had it been dry; the sneeze, 'Kertyschoo!', brings Mr McGregor running.

Which friendly birds beg Peter to exert himself when he is tangled in the gooseberry net by his jacket buttons?

Sparrows, three of them, fly to him in great excitement and implore him to exert himself, and he wriggles free just as Mr McGregor arrives with a sieve.

After publishers rejected it, how many copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit did Potter print at her own expense in 1901?

250 copies with black-and-white pictures were run off for family and friends; Warne's trade edition followed in October 1902 and had sold 50,000 by the end of 1903.

What did Frederick Warne ask Potter to do to her pen-and-ink pictures before publishing the tale in 1902?

Put them in colour she did, using the new Hentschel three-colour printing process, and the little painted pictures became the books' trademark.

Potter's own pet rabbit, the model she had in mind for the 1893 picture letter about four little rabbits, had what name?

Peter Piper was the pet Potter had in mind when she wrote the 1893 picture letter 'about four little rabbits' for a sick five-year-old.

Which Lakeland estate, where the Potters summered from 1885, has the kitchen garden Potter credited as Mr McGregor's?

Lingholm's walled kitchen garden was the original; the family rented the estate most summers between 1885 and 1907, and Potter drew its woods and fells for later tales.

In Potter's pictures, Peter Rabbit's little blue jacket is fastened with buttons made of what metal?

Brass buttons fasten the jacket, which Mr McGregor ends up hanging on a scarecrow to frighten the birds off his seeds.

Before Warne took The Tale of Peter Rabbit, what did Hardwicke Rawnsley do to it while hawking it round publishers?

Rewrote it in verse he did, and Warne politely preferred Potter's prose; Rawnsley, a founder of the National Trust, had befriended the 16-year-old Potter on a Lake District holiday.

Roughly how many copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit have been sold, making it one of the best-selling books ever?

45 million copies in 36 languages is the count for the first tale alone; the six books with Peter in them top 150 million between them.

Which Peter Rabbit product did Potter design between 1903 and 1905 that never actually went on sale?

A board game about Peter was drawn up but never published, unlike the nursery wallpaper she designed in the same years.

In The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, what do the cousins carry home in Peter's handkerchief as a present for his mother?

Onions are the peace offering for Mrs Rabbit, and the boys also get Peter's lost clothes back from the scarecrow; a cat sits on the basket they hide under for five hours.

The six Flopsy Bunnies doze off on Mr McGregor's rubbish heap after eating which 'soporific' food?

Lettuces that have bolted into flower send them to sleep, and Mr McGregor pops all six into a sack, which is where a resourceful wood-mouse comes in.

Who gnaws a hole in Mr McGregor's sack to free the six Flopsy Bunnies while he is busy elsewhere?

Thomasina Tittlemouse, a resourceful wood-mouse, nibbles the bunnies out, and the family refill the sack with rotten vegetables and a blacking brush for Mrs McGregor to find.

Jemima Puddle-Duck leaves the farm and meets a foxy gentleman because she wants to do what for herself?

Hatch her own eggs is all she wants, since the farmer's wife keeps taking them; the gentleman lends her a shed full of feathers and asks her to fetch the herbs for a stuffing.

Which hedgehog washerwoman, living in a tiny cottage high in the fells, launders Lucie's lost handkerchiefs?

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle was Potter's own pet, carried on her travels as a drawing model; the tale is set in the Newlands valley, where the real Lucie Carr lived.

Which cheeky character loses his tail after taunting Old Brown with riddles on Owl Island instead of gathering nuts?

Squirrel Nutkin's brother Twinkleberry and the cousins pay the owl in mice, moles and minnows for the right to gather on his island, while Nutkin just plays and sings riddles.

What seizes Mr Jeremy Fisher from his leaf boat, then spits him out because his mackintosh tastes nasty?

A trout swallows him whole and keeps only his galoshes; Jeremy limps home to dine with Sir Isaac Newton and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise.

Which tale, Potter's own favourite, has grateful mice finish a Mayor's embroidered wedding waistcoat overnight?

The Tailor of Gloucester grew from a true story: Gloucester tailor John Prichard found a waistcoat mysteriously finished, with a note reading 'No more twist'.

Who is the mother of Tom Kitten, Moppet and Mittens, who scrubs them up for a tea party?

Tabitha Twitchit is 'affronted' when the kittens come back filthy and clothes-less, their outfits carried off by passing puddle-ducks, and sends them to bed.

What kind of animal is Tommy Brock, who steals the Flopsy Bunnies' babies in The Tale of Mr Tod?

A badger, because 'brock' is the old northern word for one, just as 'tod' means a fox; the two fall out when Tommy Brock naps in Mr Tod's bed.

Despite her Lake District fame, Potter was born in 1866 at 2 Bolton Gardens in which city?

London was home for her first 47 years; she grew up in a tall West Brompton home with a schoolroom full of pets and few friends her own age.

Who did Potter marry in 1913, aged 47, even though her parents thought a country lawyer was not good enough?

William Heelis handled her Lake District land deals; they married on 15 October 1913 at St Mary Abbots, Kensington, eight years after her first fiancé, her editor, had died a month into their engagement.

Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, the two bad mice of Potter's 1904 tale, smash the plaster food inside what?

A doll's house that her editor was building for his niece was the model; Potter sketched it while the pair's courtship played out in letters about the book.

In which Scottish county did Potter spend the summers of her first fifteen years, at Dalguise on the River Tay?

Perthshire summers stopped in 1882, when the family switched to the Lake District and the 16-year-old Beatrix fell for the fells.

At which mock-Gothic pile by England's largest lake did 16-year-old Potter take her first Lakeland holiday in 1882?

Wray Castle was built in 1840 for a retired surgeon and rented by the Potters; the local vicar, Hardwicke Rawnsley, became her lifelong mentor.

Which village's old solicitor's office, where Potter met her husband, was home to the Beatrix Potter Gallery from 1988?

Hawkshead's gallery showed her original drawings from 1988 to 2022, in the building where her husband once practised law; Wordsworth went to school in the same village.

The World of Beatrix Potter attraction, opened in 1991 by comedian Victoria Wood, is in which lakeside town?

Bowness-on-Windermere's attraction, dedicated to the author's life and tales, has been pulling in coach parties since Victoria Wood cut the ribbon in July 1991.

St Herbert's Island, the model for Owl Island in one of Potter's tales, sits in which lake?

Derwentwater's wooded island was sketched by Potter during a Lakeland summer while she filled her notebooks with the island's wildlife.

Which Potter story, set inside Hill Top, has two rats roll Tom Kitten in dough to bake him into a pudding?

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers is dedicated to Potter's pet rat Sammy; a terrier carpenter, John Joiner, saws through the floor to rescue Tom.

Why does the village shop run by Ginger the tomcat and Pickles the terrier go out of business?

They give unlimited credit to every customer and never collect, so the shop shuts; a hen, Sally Henny-penny, reopens it on strictly cash terms.

Which girl rabbit with a 'just in case' pocket was invented for the 2012 Nick Jr and CBeebies cartoon series?

Lily Bobtail, the trio's quick-witted best friend, was new; Peter and his cousin Benjamin came from the books, and her catchphrase is 'I know that for a fact!'

The 2012 cartoon series opened in the US with a pilot episode built around which holiday?

Christmas came first: the pilot, Peter Rabbit's Christmas Tale, opened the show, and its BBC One airing on Christmas morning topped the ratings for its slot.

Who played Beatrix Potter in the live-action scenes of the 1992 BBC series The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends?

Niamh Cusack's scenes were shot at Hill Top itself; each episode opened with Potter writing the story before the animation took over.

The 1971 film The Tales of Beatrix Potter, premiered before the Queen, was danced in animal masks by which company?

The Royal Ballet's dancers wore masks moulded on Potter's drawings; the Queen attended the premiere on 1 April 1971, and the film was a British box-office hit that year.

Who played Beatrix Potter in the 2006 film Miss Potter, opposite Ewan McGregor as her fiancé?

Renée Zellweger stepped in after Cate Blanchett left for another film, became an executive producer to fix the script, and earned a Golden Globe nomination.

Who directed both the 2018 Peter Rabbit film and its 2021 sequel, co-writing the scripts as well?

Will Gluck was already known for Easy A and Friends with Benefits; the animation for his rabbits came from the effects studio Animal Logic.

Which city's Centennial Park and main station doubled for Lakeland and Paddington in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit?

Sydney hosted most of the shoot in early 2017, with a few Lakeland scenes filmed at Ambleside in Cumbria.

In the 2018 film Peter Rabbit, Elizabeth Debicki voices which of Peter's three sisters, the one in the middle?

Mopsy is Debicki's; Margot Robbie voices Flopsy and narrates the film, and Daisy Ridley is Cottontail.

Which country saw Peter Rabbit 2 first, on 25 March 2021, nearly two months before Britain did?

Australia, where both films were largely shot, got the sequel first; it earned less than half of what the first film did worldwide.

Who narrated HBO's 1991 animated musical version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in its Storybook Musicals strand?

Carol Burnett narrated it for HBO, and the film later reached VHS through Family Home Entertainment.

Which farm collie sees through the foxy gentleman's plan and comes to the rescue of Jemima Puddle-Duck?

Kep, the farm collie, scents trouble; the tale's farmyard is Hill Top, where Potter's manager John Cannon kept cows, sheep, pigs, ducks and chickens.