Editing Beatrix Potter (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Goody and Mrs. Hackee.jpg|thumb|left|Goody and Mrs. Hackee, illustration to ''The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes'', 1911]]
Potter left almost all the original illustrations for her books to the National Trust. The copyright to her stories and merchandise was then given to her publisher Frederick Warne & Co, now a division of the [[Penguin Group]]. On 1 January 2014, the copyright expired in the UK and other countries with a 70-years-after-death limit. Hill Top Farm was opened to the public by the National Trust in 1946; her artwork was displayed there until 1985 when it was moved to William Heelis's former law offices in [[Hawkshead]], also owned by the National Trust as the [[Beatrix Potter Gallery]].<ref>Bruce L. Thompson, 'Beatrix Potter's Gift to the Public'. ''Country Life'' (3 March 1944), 370–371; Taylor, et al., ''The Artist Storyteller'', Ch. 6; Lear 2007, pp. 441–447.</ref>

Potter gave her folios of mycological drawings to the [[Armitt Library|Armitt Library and Museum]] in [[Ambleside]] before her death. ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'' is owned by [[Frederick Warne & Co.|Warne]], ''The Tailor of Gloucester'' by the [[Tate Gallery]], and ''The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies'' by the [[British Museum]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://culturalinstitute.britishmuseum.org/asset-viewer/beatrix-potter-flopsy-bunnies-a-drawing-in-pen-and-ink-with-watercolour/DQEnktGEHYojdQ?hl=en|title=British Museum – Google Arts & Culture|website=britishmuseum.org|access-date=19 July 2016|archive-date=20 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920051627/http://culturalinstitute.britishmuseum.org/asset-viewer/beatrix-potter-flopsy-bunnies-a-drawing-in-pen-and-ink-with-watercolour/DQEnktGEHYojdQ?hl=en|url-status=live}}</ref>

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| image1 = Painting and drawing book - with Tale of Peter Rabbit (IA paintingdrawingb00pott).pdf
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| caption1 = Painting and drawing book, 1915
| caption2 = [[Peter Rabbit]] soft toy, 2015
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{{quote|Beatrix Potter was the first to recognise that content—as we now call the stuff that makes up a book or a film—was only the beginning. In 1903, Peter hopped outside his pages to become a patented soft toy, which gave him the distinction of being not only Mr. McGregor‘s mortal enemy, but also becoming the first licensed character.|
Erica Wagner of ''[[The Times]]''.<ref name="Times"/>}}

In 1903, Potter created the first [[Peter Rabbit]] [[soft toy]] and registered him at the [[Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom)|Patent Office]] in London, making Peter the oldest licensed fictional character.<ref name="Times">{{cite news |title=Peter Rabbit blazed a trail still well trod |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/peter-rabbit-blazed-a-trail-still-well-trod-c9zdfx2c6nk |access-date=6 October 2022 |work=[[The Times]]}}</ref><ref>"First edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit sells for £43k at auction". BBC News. Retrieved 6 October 2022. In 1903 Peter Rabbit became the first literary character in the world to be licensed and turned into a doll.</ref> Merchandise of Peter and other Potter characters have been sold at [[Harrods]] department store in London since at least 1910 when the range first appeared in their catalogues.<ref>{{cite news |title=Peter Rabbit hops into Harrods in film affiliation |url=https://www.luxurydaily.com/peter-rabbit-hops-into-harrods-in-film-affiliation/ |access-date=11 May 2023 |work=Luxury Daily}}</ref> Along with her writing Potter would continue to oversee merchandising and licensing opportunities for her characters.<ref name="Merch">{{cite news |last=Eccleshare |first=Julia |title=Peter Rabbit Turns 100 |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20020422/30115-peter-rabbit-turns-100.html |access-date=11 May 2023 |work=Publishers Weekly |date=22 April 2002}}</ref> On her legacy, Nicholas Tucker in ''[[The Guardian]]'' writes, "she was the first author to license fictional characters to a range of toys and household objects still on sale today".<ref>{{cite news |title=Happy birthday Beatrix Potter: the author's legacy 150 years on |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/28/beatrix-potter-peter-rabbit-tale-kitty-in-boots-150-anniversary |access-date=6 October 2022 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> In an article by the ''[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]'' magazine titled,  ''How Beatrix Potter Invented Character Merchandising'', Joy Lanzendorfer writes, "Potter was also an entrepreneur and a pioneer in licensing and merchandising literary characters. Potter built a retail empire out of her “bunny book” that is worth $500 million today. In the process, she created a system that continues to benefit all licensed characters, from Mickey Mouse to Harry Potter."<ref name="Smithsonian">{{cite news |title=How Beatrix Potter Invented Character Merchandising |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-beatrix-potter-invented-character-merchandising-180961979/ |access-date=6 October 2022 |work=Smithsonian}}</ref>

The largest public collection of her letters and drawings is the Leslie Linder Bequest and Leslie Linder Collection at the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] in London. (Linder was the collector who—after five years of work—finally transcribed Potter's early journal, originally written in code.) In the United States, the largest public collections are those in the Rare Book Department of the [[Free Library of Philadelphia]], and the [[Cotsen Children's Library]] at [[Princeton University]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://libwww.freelibrary.org/collections/index.cfm|title=Beatrix Potter collection|website=Free Library of Philadelphia|access-date=21 July 2019|archive-date=21 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190721004811/https://libwww.freelibrary.org/collections/index.cfm|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{multiple image|direction=vertical|align=right
 | width     = 180
 | image1    = Peter Rabbit (28606915355).jpg
 | caption1  = British [[Fifty pence (British coin)|fifty pence coin]] reverse in 2016 with a depiction of Peter Rabbit, marking the 150th anniversary of Potter's birth.<ref name="Coin">{{cite news| url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35684900| title= Royal Mint: Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit on new 50p coin |quote= Four coins will be made featuring different characters from her stories, and a special collector's 50p coin showing a colour image of Peter Rabbit will also be released.| date= 29 February 2016| website= BBC.co.uk| publisher= BBC News| access-date= August 30, 2017}}</ref>
 | image2    = Peter rabbit (121473298).jpg
 | caption2  = Peter Rabbit commemoration in East 21st Street, New York City
}}

In 2015, a manuscript for an unpublished book was discovered by Jo Hanks, a publisher at Penguin Random House Children's Books, in the Victoria and Albert Museum archive. The book ''[[The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots]]'', with illustrations by [[Quentin Blake]],<ref name="kitty in boots">{{cite news|title=Beatrix Potter story Kitty-in-Boots discovered after 100 years|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35407846|work=BBC News|publisher=BBC|date=26 January 2016|access-date=26 January 2016|archive-date=26 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160126090625/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35407846|url-status=live}}</ref> was published 1 September 2016, to mark the 150th anniversary of Potter's birth.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/entertainment/new-beatrix-potter-kitty-in-boots/index.html|date=26 January 2016|title=Long-lost Beatrix Potter tale, 'Kitty-in-Boots,' rediscovered|author=Jones, Bryony|work=CNN|access-date=3 February 2016|archive-date=4 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160204131912/http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/entertainment/new-beatrix-potter-kitty-in-boots/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Also in 2016, Peter Rabbit was depicted on the reverse of a British [[Fifty pence (British coin)|fifty pence coin]], and Peter along with other Potter characters featured on a [[Great Britain commemorative stamps 2010–2019#2016|series of UK postage stamps]] issued by the [[Royal Mail]].<ref name="Coin"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36903865|title=Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbitt and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle on anniversary stamps |date=28 July 2016|access-date=4 September 2016|work=BBC News}}</ref>

In 2017, ''The Art of Beatrix Potter: Sketches, Paintings, and Illustrations'' by Emily Zach was published after San Francisco publisher [[Chronicle Books]] decided to mark the 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth by showing that she was "far more than a 19th-century weekend painter. She was an artist of astonishing range."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thespec.com/entertainment/2017/01/02/beyond-peter-rabbit.html |title=Beyond Peter Rabbit |work=The Hamilton Spectator |last=Gwinn |first=Mary Ann |date=2 January 2017 |access-date=16 February 2022}}</ref>

In December 2017, the asteroid [[13975 Beatrixpotter]], discovered by Belgian astronomer [[Eric Elst]] in 1992, was renamed in her memory.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=13975#content|title=13975 Beatrixpotter (1992 BP2)|publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration|access-date=21 February 2019|archive-date=22 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222110741/https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=13975#content|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2022, an exhibition, ''Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature'', was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Research for the exhibition identified the man's court waistcoat c. 1780s, which inspired Potter's sketch in ''The Tailor of Gloucester''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=V&A · Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature - Exhibition at South Kensington |url=https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/beatrix-potter-drawn-to-nature |access-date=11 May 2022 |website=Victoria and Albert Museum |language=en}}</ref>