Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three original Peter Rabbit Books between 1901 and 1913. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.

Potter's feelings for Norman Warne, the youngest of the three brothers at her publisher Frederick Warne & Co., developed as they worked together on the first of her little books. In July 1905 they became engaged much to the dismay of her parents, who disapproved of the match as Warne was 'in trade'. The Potters travelled to Wales for their long summer break for the year. In the meantime Norman became very ill and died on 25 August of lymphatic leukaemia. Potter only received the telegram letting her know that Norman was dying on the morning of the 25th. In her holiday diary relating to the period in Wales, she writes of sketching on the evening of 24 August. She writes in retrospect of how still and deathlike the evening seemed and how the field she was sketching was suddenly illuminated by 'a gleam of golden sunshine'.