I honestly didn't know all that much about Beatrix Potter until I visited Hill Top Farm with a friend last September, but ever since I've become increasingly interested in her life and work. This book was a wonderful introduction to the woman, expanding on all the little bits and pieces I'd picked up visiting her various sites around the Lake District. She was so much more than Peter Rabbit! This biography takes you through her (rather lonely sounding) early years, her early fascination with the natural world, her frist attempts at getting her drawings and paintings seen, her amature mycology and interest in natural history, the publication of her most famous children's books, her unlucky first engagement, her happy marriage, her increasing interest in hill farming and land management, and her involvement with the early National Trust. The prose is peppered throughout with her own words, drawn from her early diaries and her many letters to family, friends and admirers all around the world, and Linda Lear works wonderfully to ensure Beatrix Potter is seen as nothing less than a fully complex human being, never shying away from those times that she's less sympathetic. I found this to be a wonderfully engaging biography of a fascinating woman to whom we owe a great deal, not just Peter Rabbit. I thoroughly enjoyed it.