Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist who lived from July 28, 1866, until December 22, 1943. She is most known for her animal-themed children's novels, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Potter, who was born into an upper-middle-class family and was schooled by governesses, grew up alone. She had several pets and vacationed in Scotland and the Lake District, where she developed a passion for scenery, flora, and fauna, which she meticulously observed and painted. Potter is well-known in the world of mycology for her studies and watercolors of fungi. Potter self-published the extremely acclaimed children's novel The Tale of Peter Rabbit in her forties. Potter then went full-time writing and illustrating children's books.

Potter published thirty books, the most famous of which are her twenty-three children's stories. Potter purchased Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in 1905 with the earnings from the books and a bequest from an aunt. Near Sawrey is a settlement in the Lake District in the ancient county of Lancashire. She bought more farms in the following decades to maintain the unique hill country beauty. She married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor from Hawkshead, in 1913 at the age of 47. Potter was also a prize-winning Herdwick sheep breeder and a successful farmer who was passionate about land preservation. She continued to write and illustrate, and design spin-off merchandise based on her children's books for British publisher Warne until the duties of land management and her diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue. With the large number of works that she left behind as well as her dedication, she really deserves to be on the list of the best female novelists ever.

Nationality: U.K