Introducing the latest
Beatrix Potter
Silver Proof Coins.

Tired and Hungry Bunnies!

When we first meet Peter Rabbit in Beatrix Potter’s first tale, we also meet his sisters – Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail. When the little rabbits grow up, Flopsy Bunny marries Benjamin Bunny, and they go on to have lots of baby bunnies of their own.

The little bunnies are always hungry and never far from trouble. In ‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ they happily munch lettuce until they fall asleep and just miss being made into a cloak by Mrs. McGregor. It is Mrs. Tittlemouse who saves them, and at Christmas she is rewarded with “enough rabbit-wool to make herself a cloak and a hood, and a handsome muff and a pair of warm mittens.”*

Flopsy and Benjamin’s children have another narrow escape in ‘The Tale of Mr Tod’, when the badger, Tommy Brock, carries off the newborn rabbits to make a pie. Peter Rabbit joins his cousin, Benjamin, to rescue the little ones, but it is a scuffle between the fox, Mr. Tod, and Tommy Brock that lets them escape!

*Text from ‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co.

No More Twist!

Just like the old fairy tale of ‘the elves and the shoemaker’, the Tailor of Gloucester is helped by some grateful friends. He is trying to finish a very important outfit for the Mayor of Gloucester in time for Christmas Day and, although he cuts the cloth, he is too tired and ill to finish the task.

When the tailor goes home he saves some little mice from his cat, Simpkin (to the cat’s horror!). The tailor tosses and turns in his sickbed for three days and nights, but when he enters his shop again he finds the Mayor’s fine, cherry red coat, beautifully finished by the thankful mice.

Beatrix Potter’s version of the tale is inspired by the real story of John Pritchard, whose staff completed a suit for the Mayor of Gloucester overnight. The tailor, however, said that he returned to his shop and found that fairies had finished the work. Beatrix heard the story on a visit to Gloucestershire, and created her own version, which she gave in letter format to Freda Moore, the daughter of her childhood governess.

The Tidy Little Wood Mouse

The very particular little wood mouse we meet in ‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ also appears in her own story, Beatrix Potter’s sixteenth book. She is very house proud, which is a difficult thing to be in the countryside. The little mouse’s struggle to keep her home clean and free from unwanted visitors gave Beatrix the chance to create beautiful and delicate drawings of spiders, bees and other insects. Mr. Jackson, the toad, is the unlikely hero when he rids Mrs. Tittlemouse’s home of some bees, including Babbitty Bumble. Although she is grateful, she later works hard to make her doorway too small for Mr. Jackson to pay another visit!

'He met Babbitty round a corner, and snapped her up, and put her down again.

“I do not like bumble bees. They are all over bristles,” - said Mr. Jackson, wiping his mouth with his coat sleeve.

“Get out, you nasty old toad!” - shrieked Babbitty Bumble.'

Text from ‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co.