Includes index.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is one of the best-selling, and best-loved, children's books of all time, and the story of how it came to be published -- and what's happened to the book in the 100 years since publication -- is fascinating. Judy Taylor, a leading authority on Potter, tells the story that begins with a small girl's devotion to her pet rabbit and ends with Beatrix Potter's bequest of extensive areas of England's Lake District. In between we see how the book began as a letter to the son of Potter's governess, look at its initial publication (paid for by Potter) in black-and-white, and follow Peter Rabbit's rise to the most famous rabbit in the world.