Last night my mother and I watched the beautiful movie Miss Potter, and today, serendipitously, is Miss Beatrix Potter’s birthday (b.1866).

A few interesting facts:

When Beatrix was fifteen, she began to keep a journal written in a secret code of her own invention. Even Beatrix herself, when she read back over it in later life, found it difficult to understand.

Potter made numerous drawings of lichens and fungi. As the result of her observations, she was widely respected throughout England as an expert mycologist. She also studied spore germination and life cycles of fungi.

Miss Potter’s books:
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears; but his sobs were overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great excitement, and implored him to exert himself.
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin(1903)
This is a Tale about a tail – a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.
The Tailor of Gloucester (1903)
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904)
The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904) Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears, and the oranges.
The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905)
The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905)
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906) And while Mr. Jeremy sat disconsolately on the edge of his boat – sucking his sore fingers and peering down into the water – a much worse thing happened; a really frightful thing it would have been, if Mr. Jeremy had not been wearing a macintosh!
The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit (1906)
The Story of Miss Moppet (1906) HE has wriggled out and run away; and he is dancing a jig on the top of the cupboard!
The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907)
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908)
The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, The Roly-Poly Pudding (1908)
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (1909)
The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (1909)
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse (1910)
The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911) He came up and kissed Goody through the hole; but he was so fat that he could not get out.
The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912)
The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913)
Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (1917)
The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918)
Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes (1922)
WE have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson (1930)

I think I’ve read about ten of the books on the list, but Peter Rabbit is still my favorite.

Also born on this date are poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (b.1844) and semi-famous blogger, educator, and mom, S. Early (b.1957).

“I rather like being fifty. For one thing I revel in the probability that I will not in the future make very much more of a fool of myself than I already have done. At twenty I knew I would amass the great American fortune. At thirty I knew I would write the great American novel. At forty I knew I would become a Socrates for sagacity. At fifty I know better. I know I shall end my days semieducated and semisolvent, leaving behind me an untidy paper trail of forgettable prose. To have snatched even this much ragged wisdom from the fifty-headed Cerberus of my life is no small matter. Some have fared farther and learned less.” —Clifton Fadiman, On Being Fifty.