Beatrix Potter First Editions: How to Identify Peter Rabbit and the Little Books

The first edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit is the one Beatrix Potter paid to print herself: 250 copies, ready on 16 December 1901, with a colour frontispiece, black and white line drawings and a flat spine. Frederick Warne's first trade edition, in full colour, followed in October 1902. Both are collected, and so are Warne's other early "little books", but most copies found today are later printings that are worth far less. This guide shows how to tell them apart.

The standard references are Leslie Linder's A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter (Warne, 1971) and Jane Quinby's check list. Dealers cite both: "Quinby 1, Linder p.420" means the 1901 Peter Rabbit.

Peter Rabbit: three first editions

ILAB describes Peter Rabbit as a book with three first editions. Each is a different object.

1. The privately printed first issue (December 1901)

Potter had 250 copies printed and sold them herself at 1s 2d. They sold out in about two weeks. Look for:

• small paper boards with a flat spine and a black line picture and lettering on the front
• a colour frontispiece and 41 black and white drawings
• pictures Warne later cut (it dropped eleven), such as a rabbit smoking a pipe

Sources describe the board colour as grey, grey-green or fawn, so do not rely on colour alone. The V&A holds Potter's own working copy in pale grey boards. See the 1901 edition page.

2. The privately printed second issue (February 1902)

A further 200 copies followed in February 1902, with small changes to the text, the date added to the title page and a rounded spine. Collectors call the two issues the flat-backed and round-backed rabbits. The 1902 issue is usually described in olive green boards.

3. Warne's first trade edition (October 1902)

Frederick Warne's edition has 31 colour pictures from Potter's watercolours. The first printing ran to 8,000 copies, and two more followed before Christmas (12,000 in November and 8,220 in December). The three printings are the same inside, so a first printing is identified by details that changed later:

• Page 51 reads "wept big tears". Later printings read "shed big tears".
• Plain endpapers in a pale grey leaf pattern. Pictorial endpapers arrived in 1903.
• An undated title page and 97 pages. Fitting the pictorial endpapers cut the book to 85 pages and four colour plates.
• Bindings: brown or grey paper boards at 1s, or a deluxe pale green cloth at 1s 6d. Some second and third printings were bound in green boards.

The book came in a thin glassine wrapper printed with the price on the spine. Jonkers calls a first printing in its original wrapper extremely unlikely, though at least one is known.

The other early little books

Year	Title	First edition	Points
1902	The Tailor of Gloucester	Privately printed, December 1902, 500 copies	Pink pictorial boards; 16 colour plates, three not in the trade edition
1903	The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin	Warne, August 1903	Grey or dark blue boards; a deluxe issue in flowered chintz
1904	The Tale of Benjamin Bunny	Warne, 1904	"muffatees" misspelt on page 15
1908	The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck	Warne, 1908	Dated 1908 on the title page of the first three printings

A few cautions:

• The Tailor of Gloucester. Warne's trade edition of October 1903 is not the first. Potter's private printing came first, with eight or nine more pages of text, mostly rhymes.
• Squirrel Nutkin. It was reprinted the month after publication, and Bauman says the two cannot be told apart, although some catalogues still describe a "first issue". The deluxe issue is bound in a floral cotton printed by Edmund Potter & Co., her grandfather's Manchester calico firm.
• Benjamin Bunny. The "muffatees" misprint is also in the first American edition, published by Warne's New York office, so check the imprint as well as the misprint.
• Jemima Puddle-Duck. The first three printings all carry the date and are believed to be identical, so a dated 1908 copy may be any of them.

Dating a later Warne printing

Most Potter books you find will be later printings. Warne's own system is hard to read, but three clues help:

• The imprint. "F. Warne & Co." without "Ltd" is before 1919, when the firm became a limited company.
• The endpapers. From 1903 Warne used a chain of characters on the endpapers and added new ones as books appeared. Dealers and auction houses identify these by Linder's design numbers, and the characters shown give a date after which the copy was printed.
• The style. An undated Peter Rabbit with decorated endpapers but the 1902 cover style dates from 1918 or later, according to the University of Iowa's special collections.

American editions

Warne never secured American copyright for Peter Rabbit, so the book was in the public domain in the United States. Henry Altemus of Philadelphia issued an unauthorised edition in 1904, and many others followed. These are collected for their own sake but are not first editions. Warne's own New York office issued authorised American editions of later titles, such as Benjamin Bunny, often without a date.

What they sell for

• 1901 first issue: £20,000 at a London sale of the Ottignon collection in 2013. Recent estimates for fine copies run from £25,000 to £60,000.
• 1902 second private issue: £12,000 at the same sale.
• Warne first edition: a specially bound copy inscribed by Potter in 1919 made $94,400 at Profiles in History in 2009. Jonkers notes that a fine Warne first in its wrapper reaches five figures, while a worn later copy can be a couple of hundred pounds.

Prices come from named sales, not valuations of your book. Our guide to how much your book is worth explains how to compare like with like.

Check your copy

1. Look at the spine and the pictures. A flat spine with black and white drawings may be the 1901 private issue.
2. Check the title page for a date and the imprint for "Ltd".
3. Look at the endpapers: plain leaf pattern or pictorial characters.
4. On a Warne Peter Rabbit, read page 51: "wept" or "shed" big tears.
5. Count the colour plates and compare the page count.
6. Grade the boards, which rub easily, using our condition guide, and try Is my book valuable?.