The Tale of Mr. Tod

THE TALE OF MR. TODThe Tale of Mr. Tod is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1912. The tale is about a badger called Tommy Brock and his arch enemy Mr. Tod, a fox. Brock kidnaps the children of Benjamin Bunny and his wife Flopsy, intending to eat them, and hides them in an oven in the home of Mr. Tod. Benjamin and his cousin Peter Rabbit have followed Tommy Brock in an attempt to rescue the babies. When Mr. Tod finds Brock asleep in his bed, he determines to get him out of the house. His initial attempt fails, and the two eventually come to blows. Under cover of the fight, the rabbits rescue the baby rabbits. The tale was influenced by the Uncle Remus stories, and was set in the fields of Potter's Castle Farm. Black and white illustrations outnumber those in colour. The tale is critically considered one of Potter's "most complex and successful in plot and tone." Potter's publisher wanted Mr. Tod to be the first in a new series of Peter Rabbit tales in larger formats with elaborate bindings, but Potter disliked the idea. Nonetheless, Mr. Tod and its 1913 follower, The Tale of Pigling Bland, were published in the new formats, but the idea was eventually dropped and the ordinary bindings were adopted for reprints. The two tales were the last completely original productions by Potter. She continued to publish sporadically but used decades-old concepts and sketches rather than new images and ideas. In 1995, an animated film adaptation of the tale was featured on the BBC television anthology series The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends. Following her acquisition of Hill Top Farm in 1905 in Lancashire (now Cumbria), Potter began her most creative and productive years as a children's author and illustrator. By the end of the decade, however, she had grown weary of writing for children. Her eyesight was failing, and the demands of operating her farm and caring for her aging parents limited the amount of time and attention she could allocate to the production of books. In 1912 however, she brought Peter Rabbit and his kin together for one last time in The Tale of Mr. Tod. She thought her editors too cautious and too concerned about offending the public, and knew she was capable of creating more complex characters and plots. In Mr. Tod she offered her fans two villainous characters - Mr. Tod and Tommy Brock, a fox and a badger. BEATRIX POTTERHelen Beatrix Potter (British English, North American English also 28 July 1866 - 22 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Born into a privileged household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets and spent holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developing a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Though Potter was typical of women of her generation in having limited opportunities for higher education, her study and watercolors of fungi led to her being widely respected in the field of mycology. In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Potter began writing and illustrating children's books full-time. With the proceeds from the books and a legacy from an aunt, in 1905 Potter bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey, a village in the Lake District, which at that time was in Lancashire. Over the following decades, she purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In 1913, at the age of 47, she married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor from Hawkshead. Potter was also a prize-winning breeder of Herdwick sheep and a prosperous farmer keenly interested in land preservation.