(Potter, Helen Beatrix, illus.)

Frederick Weatherly. A Happy Pair. Illustrated by H. B. P. London: Hildesheimer & Faulkner; New York: George C. Whitney, [1890]\



16mo (4 3/4 x 4 in.; 120 x 100 mm). 6 chromolithographed illustrations, each signed "H.B. P." Wrappers designed by Beatrix Potter, the upper wrapper repeated one of the text illustrations and initialed "H.B.P."; the lower wrapper being a nature study of a 4 rabbits in motion and initialed "H.I.M.", tied with pale blue silk cord and 2 tassels; very minor rubbing to spine.

Potter, Journal, pp. 211–214; Taylor, pp. 51–52; Taylor, Whalley, Hobbs & Battrick, pp. 17, 57; V & A Collection, 1765

An exceptionally fine and beautifully preserved copy of Beatrix Potter's first illustrated book. Of the half dozen or so copies that have appeared at auction in the past 35 years, none has survived the injury of time in so unblemished a state as the present copy.

At the beginning of February 1890, Beatrix Potter set about to prepare a series of Christmas cards, creating six designs with her pet rabbit, Benjamin Bouncer, as her subject. Potter noted in her journal that "... I may mention ... that my best designs occurred to me in chapel — I was rather impeded by the ... idiosyncrasies of Benjamin who has an appetite for certain sorts of paint, but the cards were finished by Easter."

Of the five publishers whom she approached, Hildesheimer and Faulkner (second on her list), accepted the designs and sent her a check for six pounds. Apparently Potter's "first act was to give Bounce ... a cupful of hemp seeds, the consequence being that when I wanted to draw him next morning he was partially intoxicated and wholly unmanageable." All the illustrations in A Happy Pair, are anthropomorphized bunnies, but the illustration on the rear wrapper is a nature study of a rabbit (or rabbits) in motion initialed "H.I.M."—presumably a secret and affectionate nod to her cherished pet rabbit and model, Benjamin C. Bouncer.  

At a later business meeting in London, Mr. Faulkner "showed a mysterious desire" for additional cards. Potter also recorded in her journal that "Mr. Faulkner had got a child's book, not of their publication, and showed me some of the pictures with an evident ambition to possess something of the same kind." Beatrix Potter's watercolors were subsequently published as Christmas and New Year's greeting cards. Hildesheimer and Faulkner issued a number of the designs in a small booklet, with the addition of verses by the Victorian songwriter, Frederic Weatherly. whom Taylor, Whalley, Hobbs and Battrick style as "a prolific writer of doggerel." The resulting publication was Potter's first illustrated book, A Happy Pair.