Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901 before Frederick Warne took it on, insisting on a small format that a child could hold. Her watercolours, based on close study of real animals and the Lake District, keep the creatures anatomically right even in waistcoats, which makes the danger in the stories feel real. Norman Warne, her editor, became her fiancé before his early death.