Anne Carroll Moore
Anne Carroll Moore and Beatrix Potter
A die-hard Anglophile, Anne Carroll Moore wished, naturally, to meet the creator of Peter Rabbit on her first trip to England, in the spring of 1921. Beatrix Potter had left London years earlier to live reclusively as a Lake District sheep farmer. Might she agree to receive an American admirer, Moore asked her British editor? "I can only wish you luck," replied Fruing Warne, gloomily. Moore finessed an invitation and was ambling up to the artist's cottage when, suddenly, "Potter came 'out of the hay' to greet me...her bright blue eyes sparkl[ing] with merriment."
Potter knew of Moore's pioneering efforts to promote children's literature and thanked her for championing it as an art form—a case seldom argued in Britain. As a parting gesture that sealed their friendship, Potter opened her portfolio and invited her discerning guest to "choose any one piece you think your children in New York would like."
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East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Written and Illustrated by Ingari and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
1951