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The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher

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The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
First edition cover
AuthorBeatrix Potter
IllustratorBeatrix Potter
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's literature
PublisherFrederick Warne & Co.
Publication date
July 1906
Publication placeEngland
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Preceded byThe Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan 
Followed byThe Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit 

The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1906. Potter's career as a children's author and illustrator was launched in 1902 with the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She continued to publish children's books, and, in 1906, expanded a frog tale she had written for a child in 1893. Potter was summering in Perthshire in 1893 and set the tale on the River Tay but, in 1906, she was living in the English Lake District at Hill Top and transferred the setting to its environs. The tale reflects her love for the Lake District and her great admiration for children's illustrator Randolph Caldecott, one of her childhood favourites.

Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a "slippy-sloppy" house at the edge of a pond. One rainy day he collects worms for fishing, and sets off across the pond on his lily-pad boat. He plans to invite his friends for dinner if he catches more than five minnows. He encounters all sorts of setbacks to his goal: a water beetle tweaks his toe, rats rustle about in the weeds at water's edge, a stickleback pricks his fingers, and a shoal of little fishes laugh at him. A large trout catches and swallows him, but takes a dislike to the taste of his Macintosh and spits him out again. Jeremy swims for shore, decides he will not go fishing again, and hops home. His friends arrive and he serves roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce for dinner.

Potter's tale pays homage to the leisurely summers her father and his upper class friends from the London clubs passed sport fishing at rented country estates in Scotland. Following the tale's publication, a child fan wrote Potter suggesting Jeremy find a wife. Potter responded with a series of miniature letters on the theme as if from Jeremy and his amphibious friends. After Potter's death in 1943, licences were issued to various firms granting permission to produce the Potter characters. Jeremy and his friends were released as porcelain figurines, plush toys, and other merchandise. Jeremy appeared as a character in the 1971 Royal Ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter, and his story was adapted to animation in 1993 as an episode in the BBC television series The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends.

Plot

Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a damp little house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond. His larder and back passage are "slippy-sloppy" with water, but he likes getting his feet wet; no one ever scolds and he never catches cold. One day, Jeremy finds it raining and decides to go fishing. Should he catch more than five minnows, he will invite his friends to dinner. He puts on a Macintosh and shiny goloshes, takes his rod and basket, and sets off with "enormous hops" to the place where he keeps his lily-pad boat. He poles to a place he knows is good for minnows.

A frog sits on a lily-pad fishing
Jeremy sits cross-legged on his lily-pad, waiting for a bite.

Once there, he sits cross-legged on his lily-pad and arranges his tackle. He has "the dearest little red float". His rod is a stalk of grass and his line a horsehair. An hour passes without a nibble. He takes a break and lunches on a butterfly sandwich. A water beetle tweaks his toe, and rats rustling about in the rushes force him to seek a safer location. He drops his line into the water and immediately has a bite. It is not a minnow but little Jack Sharp, a stickleback. The fish escapes but not before Jeremy pricks his fingers on Jack's spines. A shoal of little fishes come to the surface to laugh at Jeremy.

Jeremy sucks his sore fingers, but a trout rises from the water and seizes him with a snap. The trout dives to the bottom, but finds the Macintosh tasteless and spits Jeremy out, swallowing only his goloshes. Jeremy bounces "up to the surface of the water, like a cork and the bubbles out of a soda water bottle", and swims to the pond's edge. He scrambles up the bank and hops home through the meadow, quite sure he will never go fishing again.

In the last few pages, Jeremy has put sticking plaster on his fingers and welcomes his friends, Sir Isaac Newton, a newt, and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, a tortoise. Isaac wears a black and gold waistcoat and Ptolemy brings a salad in a string bag. Jeremy has prepared roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce. The narrator describes the dish as a "frog treat", but thinks "it must have been nasty!"[1][2]

Background

A frog and a newt converse
Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Jeremy Fisher

In addition to the frogs and other amphibians Potter kept as pets in her childhood,[3][4] the influences on Jeremy were Potter's sport fishing father Rupert William Potter and British illustrator Randolph Caldecott. In 1871, and for ten years thereafter, the Potter family summered at Dalguise House, a country estate in Scotland renowned for its outstanding fishing.[5] The young Beatrix probably overheard the fish stories of her father and his fishing buddies.[3][6] Margaret Lane, author of The Magic Years of Beatrix Potter writes of Jeremy Fisher: "[T]he imaginative parallel between frogs and human anglers in mackintoshes, and between newts and tortoises ... and certain types of elderly pompous gentlemen, is eloquent." Lane believes the picture of Jeremy relating his mishap with the trout to Sir Isaac is "so rich in observation, both of amphibians and elderly gentlemen, that one is ever afterwards prone to confuse them in memory."[3]

Mr. Potter and his daughter shared an enthusiasm for British illustrator Randolph Caldecott. Potter's father owned several of Caldecott's drawings.[7] In Jeremy Fisher, Potter consciously tried to copy Caldecott but felt she had failed. "I did try to copy Caldecott," she stated, "but ... I did not achieve much resemblance."[8] She declared, "I have the greatest admiration for his work – a jealous appreciation; for I think that others, whose names are commonly bracketed with his, are not on the same plane at all as artist-illustrators."[7]

Production

A river winds through the countryside
The River Tay (2004)

The origin of The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher lies a story letter Potter wrote to a child in September 1893 while summering on the River Tay in [Scotland]].[9] The letter begins, "Once upon a time there was a frog called Jeremy Fisher, and he lived in a little house on the banks of a river."[10][11] The following year, Potter produced nine pen and ink sketches called "A Frog he would a-fishing go" for Ernest Nister,[12][13] but the firm wrote to her: "We certainly cannot make a booklet of it as people do not want frogs now."[14] Nister continued talks, and Potter finally received the price she wanted.[12] The sketches were published in a three-page spread with accompanying verses by Clifton Bingham in 1896 a children's annual.[15][14]

Energized by the success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, Potter decided to develop the frog story and bought back her drawings and Nister's printer's blocks to protect any future copyright concerns.[15]

While developing The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin in 1902, Potter wrote her editor Norman Warne, "I should like to do Mr. Jeremy Fisher too some day."[16] She had great faith in Jeremy and told him, "I think I can make something of him."[12]

The tale was set aside while Potter and Warne developed other projects in the years following Peter Rabbit, but in 1905 he approved the frog tale for development. As Potter expanded the manuscript, she moved the setting from the River Tay to Esthwaite Water and Moss Eccles Tarn, small bodies of water in the environs of Sawrey, Hawkshead, and her Hill Top farm.[17]

A small body of water with sky overhead
Moss Eccles Tarn (2005)

In August 1905, Norman Warne died. His brother Harold became Potter's editor and she wrote him, indicating his brother had approved the frog project: "We had thought of doing the larger half-crown book of verses "Appley Dapply" & the frog "Mr. Jeremy Fisher" to carry on the series of little ones. I know some people don't like frogs! but I think I had convinced Norman that I could make it a really pretty book with a good many flowers & water plants for backgrounds. That book would be easy & plain sailing."[18] Harold Warne finally agreed to the Jeremy Fisher tale.[19] When Fruing Warne (Norman Warne's brother) thought the colouration of Jeremy Fisher incorrect, Potter settled the question by bringing a live frog to the Warne offices in a jar.[20]

In July 1906, 20,000 copies of The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher were released in both red or grey-green paper boards at one shilling and in a deluxe binding of decorated cloth at one shilling six pence in a 138 by 105 millimetres (5.4 in × 4.1 in) format. Another 5,000 copies were published in September 1906 and another 5,000 in September 1907.[21] The book was dedicated to Stephanie Hyde Parker, the daughter of Potter's cousin Ethel, Lady Hyde Parker: "For Stephanie from Cousin B.".[20] Jeremy sold as well as other Potter productions.[3]

Commentaries

MacDonald notes that The Tale of Jeremy Fisher is short and simple, and appropriate for children about the same age as that for The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Although a specific time period is not addressed by the author, the reader may assume the British Regency is intended as evinced in Jeremy's dress. [22] Judy Taylor and her colleagues indicate in Beatrix Potter 1866–1943: The Artist and Her World that the simple story is rife with Potter's keen observation of nature, and her fictional animals conduct themselves in the ways their real world models would recognize – Jeremy likes wet weather, for example, and Ptolemy eats vegetable matter.[23]

M. Daphne Kutzer, Professor of English at State University of New York at Plattsburgh and author of Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code, observes that the social positions of Jeremy and his friends are established through the clothing they wear: Jeremy wears the dress of a Regency gentleman, Sir Isaac Newton wears a black and gold waistcoat and tailcoat, and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise wears the chain and medallion of his office. Potter is not as critical of Jeremy as she is of her other indolent upper class characters such as the dolls in The Tale of Two Bad Mice. Although she sharply critiqued the upper class elsewhere, Kutzer observes that in Jeremy Fisher her tone has mellowed. She suggests that Potter's relocation to Sawrey and Hill Top farm may have produced in her a willingness to accept "the silliness of the aspiring middle class as well as the eccentricities of the upper classes" without being overly judgemental.[24]

File:JF Trout.JPG
Jeremy flees the trout

MacDonald points out that although Potter regarded the lives of her father and his pals as comical and even beneath notice, yet she clearly respected and valued their outdoor pursuits and the pleasure they took in the natural world from the bemused treatment she accorded their sporting pastimes in Jeremy Fisher. She valued nature untouched by humans even more, MacDonald notes, as evidenced by the careful observation in the illustrations. Jeremy Fisher is not a complex story, and was written without the many revisions typical of Potter's other productions. The pictures appear effortless in their execution and are distinguished by the blues and the greens of the water and its marine growth. MacDonald writes, "Her ability to show human society without also implying its damaging effects on flora and fauna further underscores the book's felicitous composition and success."[25]

Lear writes, "[Potter] wanted to do a frog story for some time, because it was amusing and offered the opportunity for the naturalist illustrations she delighted in. [...] The story of a fisherman down on his luck reminded Beatrix of the 'fish stories' her father's friends had told in Scotland, as well as her brother's travails with rod and reel. She also recreated the gentlemen's club atmosphere absorbed from her father's reports of evenings spent at the Reform and the Athenaeum. [...] The text and illustrations for this story are some of the most balanced and compatible of all her writing. Nature is described and illustrated truthfully: beautifully tranquil as well as unpredictably aggressive. [...] Its carefully coloured botanical backgrounds of water plants, a frog with anatomically correct turned-out feet, a trout that any self-respecting fisherman would enjoy snagging, and a rather frighteningly rendered water-beetle who tweaks Jeremy's dainty toes, all made it a delight to look at as well as to read."[26]

Miniature letters

A frog in a waistcoat and tail-coat looks at a snail
Jeremy in his "slippy-sloppy" larder dressed in his sprigged waistcoat and maroon tail-coat

Between 1907 and 1912 Potter created a series of miniature letters for child fans. These letters were written as from some of her animal characters and intended to shed light on their lives outside the tales. Each letter was folded to represent an envelope, and addressed to the child recipient; there was a tiny stamp in the corner drawn with a red crayon. They were sent to the children in a miniature post bag Potter had made herself or in a bright red toy tin mail box. "Some of the letters were very funny," Potter wrote, "The defect was that inquiries and answers were all mixed up."[27]

Four Jeremy Fisher letters are extant. All were probably written at about the time The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse was in production (1910) because that book's Mr. Jackson is alluded to in one letter. All were addressed to "Master Drew Fayle, Kilymore, Co. Dublin" who thought Jeremy should marry. In one letter, Sir Isaac promises Master Fayle a piece of wedding cake should Jeremy marry and, in another letter, Ptolemy writes that "[Jeremy's] dinner parties would be much more agreeable if there were a lady to preside at the table. I do not care for roasted grasshoppers." Jeremy writes Master Fayle in the third letter: "When I bought my sprigged waistcoat & my maroon tail-coat I had hopes ... but I am alone ... if there were a 'Mrs. Jeremy Fisher' she might object to snails. It is some satisfaction to be able to have as much water & mud in the house as a person likes." Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, a hedgehog washerwoman in a previous Potter tale, writes Master Fayle in the fourth letter:

Dear Master Drew,

If you please Sir I am a widow; & I think it very wrong that there is not any Mrs. Fisher, but I would not marry Mr. Jeremy not for worlds, the way he does live in that house all slippy-sloppy; not any lady would stand it, & not a bit of good starching his cravats.

Yr. obedient washerwoman,
Tiggy Winkle.[28]

In a series of invitations, Ptolemy requests the company of Jeremy and Isaac for a Christmas dinner of snail. The invitations reveal that Jeremy lives at Pond House, Isaac at The Well House, and Ptolemy at Melon Pit, South Border. Isaac writes: "Dear Mr. Alderman, I shall look forward to dining with you on Dec. 25th. It is an unexpected pleasure as I thought you were asleep. No doubt the melon pit is proof against frost. I am nearly frozen in the well house. Our friend Fisher was taking mud baths at the bottom of the pond when I last met him. Yrs. faithfully, I. Newton."[29]

Merchandise

Marketing strategy was a principal force in making Potter's small format books the classics she asserted they would one day be.[30] She recognized the commercial possibilites of her characters and exploited Peter Rabbit between 1903 and 1905 with a doll, an unpublished board game, and a children's wallpaper.[31] Potter termed the ancillary merchandise "side-shows" and continued to exploit her tales and characters over the course of twenty years.[32]

A frog fishing from a lily pad lands a fish
The image of Jeremy landing little Jack Sharp inspired a Beswick porcelain figurine and an ANRI wood carving.

In 1947, Frederick Warne & Co. granted Beswick Pottery of Longton, Staffordshire rights and licences to produce the Potter characters in porcelain. A figurine of Jeremy Fisher was issued in 1950 and figurines of Isaac Newton and Ptolemy Tortoise in 1972 and 1973. A figurine of Jeremy digging for worms was released in 1988 and a figurine of Jeremy catching a fish was released in 1999. A Jeremy mug was produced in 1988 and a large figurine of Jeremy in 1994.[33]

Stuffed toy manufacturers had sought licensing rights to the Potter characters as early as 1909 but it was not until the 1970s that House of Nesbit Ltd., an English firm, was granted worldwide rights. Their detailed products were labour intensive, unprofitable, and finally discontinued. In 1972, Eden Toys, Inc. of New York received exclusive rights and, in 1973, Jeremy Fisher was one of the first eight plush toys released by the firm. In 1974, Jeremy and other characters were issued as 37 inches (94 cm) "Giants" intended for store displays. Collectors soon sought them. During the 1980s, Jeremy and Peter Rabbit "Giants" were produced in several versions. In 2000, in keeping with the Beanie Baby craze, Jeremy was issued as a beanbag collectible. Isaac Newton was released for two years. The most popular Potter characters, including Jeremy, have been available in countless sizes and versions over three decades of production.[34]

Schmid & Co. were granted licensing rights to Beatrix Potter in 1977. Jeremy Fisher was one of the first ten character music boxes the company released in 1977, and music boxes depicting Ptolemy Tortoise and Isaac Newton were released in 1983 and 1984. In 1983, a flat ceramic Christmas ornament of Jeremy was released, and in 1987 an ornament depicting Jeremy on his lily-pad.[35]

Other merchandise includes a variety of Jeremy Fisher enamelled boxes manufactured by Crummles of Poole, Dorset between 1974 and 1995, an ANRI wood carving and ANRI Toriart figurines and ornaments, and Huntley & Palmer biscuit tins between 1974 and 1978.[36]

Reprints and translations

As of 2010, all 23 of Potter's small format books remain in print, and are available as complete sets in presentation boxes,[37] and as a 400-page omnibus edition.[38] Jeremy Fisher is available in Kindle format.[39] First editions and early reprints are occasionally offered by antiquarian booksellers.[40][41]

The English language editions of the tales still bore the Frederick Warne imprint in 2010 though the company was bought by Penguin Books in 1983. Penguin remade the printing plates from new photographs of the original drawings in 1985, and all 23 volumes were released in 1987 as The Original and Authorized Edition.[42]

Potter's small format books have been translated into nearly thirty languages, including Greek and Russian.[42] The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher was published in French in 1940 as Jérémie Pêche-à-la-Ligne, and in Dutch as Jeremais de Hengelaar in 1946. The tale was republished in Dutch in 1970 as Het Verhaal van Jeremais Hengelaar and was published in the Initial Teaching Alphabet in 1965.[43] In 1984, the tale was again translated into French by M.A. James as L’histoire de Monsieur Jérémie Peche-a-la-Ligne.[44] In 1986, MacDonald observed that the Potter books had become a traditional part of childhood in both English-speaking lands and those in which the books had been translated.[45]

References

Footnotes
  1. ^ MacDonald 1986, p. 96
  2. ^ Potter 2002, pp. 6–57
  3. ^ a b c d Lane 1989, p. 152 Cite error: The named reference "Lane152" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ Lear 2007, p. 212
  5. ^ Lear 2007, p. 27
  6. ^ Lear 2007, pp. 27–8
  7. ^ a b Lear 2007, p. 47
  8. ^ Taylor 1987, p. 129
  9. ^ Lear 2007, pp. 211–2
  10. ^ Taylor 1987, p. 126
  11. ^ Denyer 2000, p. 111
  12. ^ a b c Taylor 1987, pp. 126–7
  13. ^ Hobbs 1985, p. 12
  14. ^ a b Taylor 1996, p. 66
  15. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference CC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Taylor 1996, pp. 80–1
  17. ^ Kutzer 2003, p. 117
  18. ^ Taylor 1996, p. 111
  19. ^ Taylor 1996, p. 106
  20. ^ a b Lear 2007, pp. 211–3
  21. ^ Linder 1971, p. 426
  22. ^ MacDonald 1986, p. 96
  23. ^ Taylor 1987, p. 127
  24. ^ Kutzer 2003, p. 121
  25. ^ MacDonald 1986, p. 98
  26. ^ Lear 2007, pp. 212–3
  27. ^ Linder 1971, p. 82
  28. ^ Linder 1971, pp. 79–80
  29. ^ Linder 1971, pp. 80–1
  30. ^ MacDonald 1986, p. 128
  31. ^ Lear 2007, pp. 172–5
  32. ^ Taylor 1987, p. 106
  33. ^ DuBay 2006, pp. 30,35
  34. ^ DuBay 2006, pp. 91–2,101
  35. ^ DuBay 2006, pp. 106,120
  36. ^ DuBay 2006, pp. 78–9,130,134,138
  37. ^ "The World of Peter Rabbit". Amazon.com. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  38. ^ "Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales". Amazon.com. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  39. ^ "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher [Kindle edition]". Amazon.com. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  40. ^ "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher". Aleph-Bet Books. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  41. ^ "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher". Kirkland Books of Kendall. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  42. ^ a b Taylor 1996, p. 216
  43. ^ Linder 1971, pp. 433–37
  44. ^ "L'histoire de Monsieur Jérémie Peche-a-la-Ligne". BYU. Retrieved 3 November 2010.
  45. ^ MacDonald 1986, p. 130
Works cited
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