100 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.

Which film-maker asked Potter in the 1930s if he could make a Peter Rabbit film, and was told no?

Walt Disney went away empty-handed: Potter wrote that she was 'not very hopeful about the result', doubting her pictures would survive being enlarged, and Disney never did make a Potter film.

What was the first piece of Peter Rabbit merchandise, made and patented by Potter herself in 1903?

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.

Because women could not attend, a man read Potter's 1897 paper to the Linnean Society on which subject?

Fungi fascinated her: after a decade of drawing them she worked out how their spores germinate, but Kew's director had brushed her off and the paper itself is now lost.

How was Potter's diary written, unread until Leslie Linder worked it out in 1958?

A secret code of her own devising hid the journal until Linder spotted 'XVI' and '1793' on one page, guessed at the execution of Louis XVI and unlocked most of her alphabet from that single line.

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; in the film Thomas McGregor works there until he loses a promotion to the managing director's nephew and is fired.

Hiding from Mr McGregor in the tool-shed, Peter jumps into what, only for a sneeze to give him away?

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 Peter Rabbit in 1902?

Put them in colour she did, after first insisting on black and white to keep the book cheap for children; she chose the new Hentschel three-colour process to print her watercolours.

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 to a sick five-year-old, Noel Moore, who kept the letter safely enough for her to borrow it back years later and make it a book.

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

Lingholm's kitchen garden is the one Potter credited as her first inspiration, though for the sequel, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, she drew the gardens of Fawe Park next door.

In The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter's new blue jacket has buttons made of which metal?

Brass buttons catch in a gooseberry net and nearly cost Peter his life; he escapes without the jacket, which Mr McGregor hangs up as a scarecrow.

What did Hardwicke Rawnsley do to The Tale of Peter Rabbit 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, for a story that at least six publishers turned down before Potter paid to print it herself.

Which Peter Rabbit product did Potter design in 1904 that her publisher left unpublished for years?

A board game, The Game of Peter Rabbit, went to Warne in December 1904 with her note that 'the chances are strongly in favour of Peter'; the firm issued its own version only in 1919.

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 shot into flower send them to sleep, and Mr McGregor counts all six into a sack, meaning to sell them and buy himself tobacco.

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?

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 drags him to the bottom of the pond but swallows only his galoshes; Jeremy hops home and dines on roasted grasshopper with a newt called Sir Isaac Newton.

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 an old British word for one, just as 'tod' is a Scots and northern word for 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 most of her first 47 years; taught there by governesses, she kept a schoolroom menagerie of mice, rabbits and other animals brought back from family holidays.

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 eight years after her first fiancé, her editor Norman Warne, 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 Winifred was the model; he sent Potter its dolls and toy food, and their courtship played out in letters about the book.

In which Scottish county did Potter spend eleven childhood summers, 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 former solicitor's office, where Potter's husband practised, housed the Beatrix Potter Gallery from 1988?

Hawkshead's gallery showed her original drawings until 2022, in the office where she is thought to have first met her future husband; Wordsworth went to school in the same village.

The World of Beatrix Potter, an attraction that recreates scenes from her tales, is in which Cumbrian town?

Bowness-on-Windermere's attraction was opened in 1991 by the comedian Victoria Wood, a friend of its founders, and the theatre sharing its old laundry building was later renamed in her honour.

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

Derwentwater's St Herbert's Island is named after a seventh-century hermit said to have lived on it, and monks once sailed out to it on pilgrimage from a crag near Keswick.

Which Potter story has two rats roll Tom Kitten in dough for 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 close down?

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 was invented as Peter's best friend for the 2012 Nick Jr and CBeebies cartoon series?

Lily Bobtail was new, written in beside Peter and his cousin Benjamin, who both come from the books; the three set off on adventures guided by the journal Peter's late father left him.

The 2012 Peter Rabbit cartoon series opened in the US with a special built around which holiday?

Christmas came first: in Peter Rabbit's Christmas Tale, Mr. Bouncer falls ill, so Peter and his cousin Benjamin brave a blizzard to deliver the holiday supplies in his place.

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 was danced in animal masks by which company?

The Royal Ballet's dancers wore full animal masks, and choreographer Frederick Ashton, the company's former director, danced one of the animals himself in what became a British box-office hit.

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 known for Easy A and Friends with Benefits; after allergy charities objected to a scene in the first film, the film-makers and Sony issued a joint apology.

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.

Which star both narrates the 2018 film Peter Rabbit and voices Peter's sister Flopsy?

Margot Robbie's Flopsy later got her name on a spin-off: the film's home release added Flopsy Turvy, a mini-movie about Peter's three sisters.

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

Australia got the sequel first after a year of pandemic delays that kept moving its date elsewhere; it went on to earn less than half of what the first film did worldwide.

At the end of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, what does his mother dose Peter with at bedtime?

Camomile tea, one tablespoonful at bedtime, is all the poorly Peter gets, while Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail, who stayed out of the garden, sit down to bread and milk for supper.

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

Kep fetches two foxhound puppies and together they see off the fox, though Kep comes away with a bitten ear and both puppies limping.

What does Mr McGregor make from the blue jacket and shoes Peter Rabbit leaves behind in the garden?

A scarecrow to frighten the blackbirds is what he hangs them up as. The clothes are hanging there when cousin Benjamin comes calling in the next book.

Which Oscar-winning actress wrote the authorised 2012 sequel The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit?

Emma Thompson sent Peter to Scotland as an accidental stowaway, in a book marking 110 years since Potter's original.

Which former host of The Late Late Show provides the voice of Peter in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit?

James Corden was announced in the role in 2016 and came back to voice Peter again in the 2021 sequel.

To which conservation charity did Beatrix Potter leave some 4,000 acres of Lake District land?

The National Trust had never received a larger gift. It kept traditional fell farming alive on land that later became part of a national park.

Miss Potter director Chris Noonan is best known for which Oscar-nominated talking-animal film?

Babe earned Noonan Oscar nominations for both directing and writing. His film of Potter's life followed eleven years later.

Flopsy and Mopsy are two of Peter Rabbit's sisters in Potter's original tale; who is the third?

Cotton-tail and her two sisters are the good little bunnies who obey their mother, and they get bread, milk and berries for supper while Peter goes without.

Why could American firms legally print their own editions of The Tale of Peter Rabbit?

No US copyright was filed by her publisher, so the Henry Altemus Company issued an unlicensed edition in 1904 and many others followed.

Which American classic gave Potter phrases she reused in her own rabbit books?

Uncle Remus, Joel Chandler Harris's tales of Br'er Rabbit, was a favourite of Potter's. She drew illustrations for the stories in the 1890s, years before Peter Rabbit was published.

Under the title Guto Gwningen, the 2012 Peter Rabbit cartoon aired on S4C dubbed into which language?

Welsh broadcaster S4C renamed the hero Guto, and 'gwningen' is a form of cwningen, the word for a rabbit.

Feeling sick after overeating in Mr McGregor's garden, Peter Rabbit goes looking for which herb?

Parsley is what Peter hunts for to settle his stomach, and the search leads him round a cucumber frame straight into Mr McGregor.

Which root vegetable does Peter Rabbit eat in Mr McGregor's garden just before he starts to feel sick?

Radishes round off a meal that began with French beans and salad leaves. Carrots, the rabbit cliché, are never mentioned in Potter's book.

Peter Rabbit's family live in a sandbank under the root of which very big tree?

A fir shelters the burrow, and Peter does not stop running until he is back beneath it, where he flops down on the sandy floor.

What does old Mrs Rabbit buy at the baker's, along with a brown loaf, while Peter is off misbehaving?

Currant buns go into her basket, five of them. She sets off through the wood with her umbrella, trusting all four children to stay out of trouble.

What does Mr McGregor try to trap Peter Rabbit under while he is caught in the gooseberry net?

A sieve is meant to be popped on top of him, but Peter wriggles out just in time and leaves his jacket behind in the net.

Beside the pond in Mr McGregor's garden, a white cat sits very still watching what?

Some goldfish hold her attention, and Peter creeps away without a word because cousin Benjamin has warned him about cats.

Lost in Mr McGregor's garden, Peter Rabbit climbs onto what to peep over and spot his way out?

A wheelbarrow gives him the view he needs: Mr McGregor is hoeing with his back turned, and the gate lies just beyond him.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit began as an 1893 picture letter to which sick five-year-old boy?

Noel Moore was the eldest son of Potter's former governess Annie, who later suggested the picture letters could be turned into books.

What is Mr McGregor planting out on his hands and knees when Peter Rabbit runs into him?

Cabbages are forgotten at once as he jumps up and gives chase, waving a rake and shouting after the thief.

Which farm in Near Sawrey did Beatrix Potter buy in 1905 with her royalties and a legacy?

Hill Top went on to appear in several of her tales, and its garden is the one pictured in the story of Tom Kitten.

Beatrix Potter became a prize-winning breeder of which hardy Lakeland sheep in her farming years?

Herdwick flocks won her many show prizes, and the breeders' association elected her its first woman president, though she died before taking office.

In The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, the cousins enter Mr McGregor's garden by climbing down which tree?

A pear is their way in this time, where Peter had squeezed under the gate on his first raid.

Which woollen cap, far too big for him, does Benjamin Bunny try on in Mr McGregor's garden?

A tam-o'-shanter is a Scottish bonnet named after the hero of a Robert Burns poem, a fitting thing to find in the garden of a Mr McGregor.

In The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, which fragrant plant does Potter call 'rabbit-tobacco'?

Lavender hangs from the burrow ceiling at the close, and Potter insisted the book end on the word 'rabbit-tobacco', which she thought a rather fine one.

In The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, what does Mrs McGregor plan to line with the rabbits' skins?

Her old cloak never gets its fur lining, because the sack she opens holds only rotten vegetables and a blacking brush.

What business does the grown-up Peter Rabbit run in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies?

A nursery garden and florist's trade keeps the adult Peter respectable, a neat reversal for a rabbit who made his name raiding vegetable plots.

Potter's The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse retells a story first credited to which ancient author?

Aesop is credited with the story of the town mouse and the country mouse, and Potter added details from the Roman poet Horace's telling.

What kind of animal is Potter's Mr Jeremy Fisher, who sets out fishing in a mackintosh and galoshes?

A frog suited Potter, who kept them as pets when young. Her sport-fishing parent Rupert was one model for the character.

Which Potter pig sets off for market with a licence and ends up fleeing with a black sow?

Pigling Bland runs off with Pig-wig, a Berkshire sow modelled on one Potter kept as a pet after her farm manager objected to a black pig.

Which illustrator drew the pictures for Potter's rediscovered The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, published in 2016?

Quentin Blake drew the story a century after Potter sent it to her publisher in 1914, when war and her marriage interrupted the work.

Which American author gave his own Old Mother West Wind stories a hero called Peter Rabbit?

Thornton Burgess introduced his Peter in a 1910 book and happily credited Potter with making the name known the world over.

Which Pre-Raphaelite artist, a Potter family friend, praised Beatrix's youthful powers of observation?

John Everett Millais knew the family through Rupert Potter, an adept amateur photographer, and his influence shows in Beatrix's early writing on art.

Norman Warne, to whom Potter became engaged in 1905, had worked with her on the little books as what?

Her editor became her unofficial fiancé in 1905, but the engagement lasted only one month before he died at 37.

Which museum holds the largest public collection of Beatrix Potter's letters and drawings?

The V&A, the Victoria and Albert Museum, also yielded an unpublished Potter manuscript when a publisher went searching through its archive.

Before her books, Beatrix Potter earned money in the 1890s by printing her own designs on what?

Greeting cards came first, and in 1890 a firm bought her drawings of her pet rabbit Benjamin Bunny to illustrate A Happy Pair, with words by Frederic Weatherly.

Which Harry Potter and Star Wars actor plays Thomas McGregor in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit?

Domhnall Gleeson pulls double duty in the film: he is also the voice of Potter's angler Mr Jeremy Fisher.

Which Bridesmaids star plays Bea, the rabbits' human neighbour, in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit?

Rose Byrne called Bea a re-imagined Beatrix Potter, and she also supplies the voice of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

Which Jurassic Park star plays the elderly Mr McGregor in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit?

Sam Neill plays the gardener and is heard again in the same film as the voice of Tommy Brock.

Which Selma star plays the publisher Nigel Basil-Jones in the 2021 sequel Peter Rabbit 2?

David Oyelowo plays the man who wants to sell Peter as a troublemaker, complete with a billboard that makes him look like a villain.

In Peter Rabbit 2, what is the big prize in Barnabas's plan to rob the farmers' market?

Dried fruit is the score Barnabas secretly means to keep for himself, and the rabbits end up handing it back to the market sellers.

In the 2018 film Peter Rabbit, what do the rabbits rewire so Thomas McGregor gets shocks from his doorknobs?

His electric fence was bought to keep the rabbits out of the vegetable patch, so they turn it on its owner as their feud escalates.

What kills old Mr McGregor early in the 2018 film Peter Rabbit, just as he finally catches Peter?

A heart attack fells him after years of unhealthy living, and Peter celebrates by inviting the local animals to take over the manor.

Animal Logic, which animated the rabbits of the 2018 film Peter Rabbit, earlier animated which 2014 hit?

The Lego Movie and the Oscar-winning Happy Feet both came from the same studio, which handled the animation and visual effects for Peter's film.

Plans for the 2018 film Peter Rabbit first leaked in 2015 in the hacked emails of which studio?

Sony Pictures saw its emails spilled online after the 2014 hack, and they mentioned the Peter Rabbit project months before the studio announced it.

Brown Bag Films, which animated the 2012 Peter Rabbit series, is based in which capital city?

Dublin is home to the studio, whose work on the series brought it six Emmy awards.

In the 2012 Peter Rabbit cartoon, which keepsake of his dad's does Peter carry on his adventures?

A journal left by his late dad serves as Peter's guide to being a good rabbit, and he wants to grow up to be just like him.

In the 2012 Peter Rabbit cartoon, which part of Mr McGregor is always kept hidden from viewers?

His face never appears on screen; viewers see only the rest of him as he chases the rabbits, speaking in a Scottish accent.

In the 2012 Peter Rabbit cartoon, what kind of animal is the elderly adventurer Mr Tolly?

A tortoise who has lived for many years, Mr Tolly once went adventuring with Peter's dad alongside Jeremy Fisher and Mr Bouncer.

Fabula de Petro Cuniculo is a 1962 translation of The Tale of Peter Rabbit into which language?

Latin editions from Potter's own publisher followed for Jemima Puddle-Duck and Mr Jeremy Fisher as well.

Which American comedy legend narrated HBO's 1991 animated musical of The Tale of Peter Rabbit?

Carol Burnett told the story for the network's Storybook Musicals series, a year before the BBC began its own animated Potter adaptations.

Which younger brother shared Beatrix Potter's schoolroom menagerie of mice, rabbits, bats and a hedgehog?

Bertram was nearly six years her junior, and the pair drew and studied their schoolroom pets endlessly.