Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was her first commercially published work in 1902. Her books, including 23 Tales, have sold more than 250 million copies. An entrepreneur, Potter was a pioneer of character merchandising. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.
Louis William Wain was an English artist best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats and kittens.
The Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) is a UK-based artists’ exhibiting society, formed in 1920, one of its founder-members being Eric Gill. It was originally restricted to artist-engravers printing with oil-based inks in a press, distinct from the separate discipline of woodcuts. Today, its support extends to other forms of relief printmaking, and awards honorary membership to collectors and enthusiasts.
Michael Ayrton was a British painter, printmaker, sculptor, critic, broadcaster and novelist. His sculptures, illustrations, poems and stories often focused on the subjects of flight, myths, mirrors and mazes.
Frieda Rebecca Hughes is an English-Australian poet and painter. She has published seven children's books, four poetry collections and one short story and has had many exhibitions. Hughes is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist and poet Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1984 until his death in 1998.
Eileen Alice Soper was an English etcher and illustrator of children's and wildlife books. She produced a series of etchings, mainly of children playing, and illustrated books for other writers, notably for Enid Blyton and Elizabeth Gould. She also wrote and illustrated her own children's book. Some of her illustrations of children and animals were used in a china series for children by Paragon China in the 1930s. Later in life she concentrated on writing and illustrating wildlife books. She was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS) in 1972.
Aileen Francis Paterson MBE was a Scottish writer and illustrator, best known for her series of children's books about Maisie MacKenzie, the kitten.
The Tale of Tom Kitten is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1907. The tale is about manners and how children react to them. Tabitha Twitchit, a cat, invites friends for tea. She washes and dresses her three kittens for the party, but within moments the kittens have soiled and lost their clothes while scampering about the garden. Tabitha is "affronted". She sends the kittens to bed, and tells her friends the kittens have the measles. Once the tea party is underway however, its "dignity and repose" are disturbed by the kittens romping overhead and leaving a bedroom in disorder.
The Story of Miss Moppet is a tale about teasing, featuring a kitten and a mouse, that was written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small-format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format.
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was a British wood-engraver and sculptor. Hermes was a member of the English Wood Engraving Society (1925–31) and exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers, the Royal Academy and The London Group during the 1930s.
Bessie Bamber was a British artist who specialised in paintings of domestic pets, particularly kittens and cats.
Barbara Mildred Jones was an English artist, writer and mural painter. She is known for curating the exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade (1951) and her book The Unsophisticated Arts (1951).
Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit is a fictional anthropomorphic cat who features in the books of Beatrix Potter. She is a shopkeeper and the long-suffering mother of three unruly kittens, Moppet, Mittens and Tom Kitten.
Flame Tree Publishing is an independent publisher of books, calendars and other stationery items, based in Fulham, London, United Kingdom with an editorial office in New York. It focuses on art, music, lifestyle and fiction categories. Flame Tree creates content in the form of paper printed encyclopedias, guides and practical books and publishes them in different book, gift, stationery and digital markets worldwide. It has a number of license arrangements with museums, galleries and other licensors, including Tate, V&A and The Royal Academy of Arts. The publisher started releasing e-books and launched a new fantasy, crime and science fiction classics imprint called Flame Tree 451. In 2015 Flame Tree launched a range of deluxe Gothic Fantasy titles combining new stories from open submissions and curated classic writing. In 2018 a new trade imprint fiction imprint called Flame Tree Press began to publish new novels in the horror and suspense, sf and fantasy and crime and mystery genres.
Margaret Pilkington was a British wood-engraver who was active at the beginning of the twentieth century. She was a pupil of Noel Rooke at the Central School of Art and Design and was a member of the Society of Wood Engravers and the Red Rose Guild. She was awarded the OBE in 1956.
Nikki McClure is a papercut artist based in Olympia, Washington. She is the author and illustrator of a number of children's books and produces an annual calendar.
Gwenda Morgan was a British wood engraver. She lived in the town of Petworth in West Sussex.
Val Archer is a British oil painter and teacher who is known for her meticulously composed still life paintings.
Anne Turyn is an American photographer. Her work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is also an adjunct professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Jean Douglas Burns was a Scottish artist whose work focused on woodcuts and engraving.
