|
Beatrix
Potter has delighted generations of children with her books.
But she kept her own private life locked carefully away.
Oscar-winning star Renee Zellweger is now bringing her secret
story to the screen in "Miss Potter," the first film directed
by Chris Noonan since his charming 1995 movie, Babe. It is set
in the high summer days of late Victorian and Edwardian
England, during which Beatrix develops her natural skills as
artist and storyteller. When she finally publishes her debut
book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, she becomes a writing
celebrity. It also leads to courtship and her first love with
publisher Norman Warne, played by Ewan McGregor. Their
relationship and his marriage proposal in July, 1905, was to
change Beatrix's life for ever.
It was a love which she could not announce - or even talk
about. In high-society London, her parents had insisted she
keep it from friends and neighbours. They considered her
proposed wedding a mismatch. Warne, they said, was from
'trade' and demanded that she carefully reconsider their life
together. Beatrix allowed herself to be persuaded to leave her
fiance and London. It was supposed to be a time for reflection
and calm. But, instead, she faced tragedy and loneliness and
returned, with a different outlook. She became a woman of
strong views and independence. She also built up a farming
dynasty in the Lake District - a dynasty over which she took
charge long after her writing career virtually ended in 1913.
It established her as a woman ahead of her time. Despite
becoming the world's most successful children's writer and a
wealthy landowner and prize-winning farmer, she never forgot
her first love. |
