Fanny English manuscript and illustrations of Peter Rabbit

This collection contains a manuscript album created by Fanny Hutchinson King English (1871–1944) as a gift for her daughter Mary (1904–1976) in 1907, when Mary was three years old. A bookseller's ticket is affixed to the pastedown, and a gift inscription reading "Mary Dennis English. March 10, 1907" appears on the opposite pastedown. The album comprises twenty-eight pages of manuscript and watercolor illustration and contains three pieces of correspondence laid in. One side of the dos-a-dos book duplicates a post-1903 edition of Beatrix Potter's “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” in manuscript and watercolor illustration, identifiable as a post-1903 edition by the substitution of "Peter shed big tears" for the first edition's "Peter wept." The reverse side contains six original botanical and landscape watercolors by Mary English, executed at an unspecified later date. Two watercolors are laid in: a collection of daisies inscribed "Mama darling" on verso, and a horse labeled "Limerick" on recto with the inscription "To darling, darling Mummy from Mary" on verso, dated 1918. The three pieces of correspondence laid in include letters from Mary's grandmother Rachel Anne English (1832–1920) and from Fanny to Mary, written across Mary's childhood and adulthood.