Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

012. March 8, 1895, page 4

Beatrix Potter
1866–1943

Autograph letter signed, London, to Noel Moore, March 8, 1895

March 8, 1895
MA 2009.3

Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959

Transcription

I gave the elephant a lot of buns out of a bag but I did not give any to the ostriches because people are not allowed to feed them, since a naughty boy gave them old gloves & made them ill. I saw a black bear rolling on its back. I did not know that the old wolf was so good tempered.

I remain yrs aff
Beatrix Potter

This is the first of several get-well letters Potter wrote to Noel Moore while he was sick in bed during the spring of 1895. Her stories about a visit to the zoo were designed to raise the spirits of a child who might hope for similar adventures when his health improved. Instead of the usual cheery admonitions, she devised an amusing fantasy where the patient is attended by a solicitous mole physician and a sprightly mouse nurse bearing a tea-cup on a tray. She liked the image of the light-footed lady mouse and adapted it in Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes (1917), where the title character is shown scampering off with a platter full of pies.