23 Tales with Tails
I have hidden this cache in celebration of Beatrix Potter day, which is also her birthday, July 28.
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, farmer, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was her first published work in 1902. Her books have sold more than 250 million copies. An entrepreneur, Potter was a pioneer of character merchandising. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.
Potter was an important part of many childhoods and has touched the lives of generations across the world. Born into an upper-middle-class household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets that would later influence her writing. For example, her pet rabbit, Benjamin Bouncer, was the inspiration behind The Tale of Benjamin Bunny. Other pets in the Potter household included a frog, a hedgehog, a squirrel, and a dog. She spent holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developing a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted.
After seeing how much her children enjoyed Potter’s letters, one of her governess and friends, Annie Moore, encouraged her to turn them into children’s books. In 1901, Potter submitted The Tale of Peter Rabbit to six publishers, all of whom rejected the work. Instead of getting discouraged, Potter self-published 250 copies of her now famed children’s book. Shortly thereafter in 1902, Frederick Warne & Co, one of the publishers who originally rejected the work, picked up the book and sold over 20,000 copies within the first year. Though women in her time were discouraged from pursuing science, Potter didn’t let that stop her and spent her 20’s collecting and drawing specimens.
Though her work in mycology — the study of mushrooms — was ignored by the male-dominated scientific world, her theories would later prove to be true, and her illustrations of mushrooms are still used to study fungi today. An award-winning sheep breeder, Potter became the first woman to be elected president of the Herdwick’s Sheep Breeder’s Association in 1943. As she grew older and her eyesight weakened, Potter eventually stopped writing, but she certainly stayed busy. As the owner of 14 farms spanning 4,000 acres, Potter spent her days tending to the land and its animals. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now constitutes the Lake District National Park. Potter's books continue to sell throughout the world in many languages with her stories being retold in songs, films, ballet, and animations, and her life is depicted in two films and a television series. Though she died in 1943, Beatrix Potter had a new book published in 2016. The previously unknown manuscript for The Tales of Kitty-in-Boots was found in 2015 and is accompanied by illustrations from Quentin Blake.
At about the age of 14, Potter began to keep a diary, written in a simple substitution cipher of her own devising. It seems reasonable to conclude that her code writing was at least initially devised against the possibility that her mother might read it. This epic collection of observations, poems and notes is a fascinating reflection of the author as a young woman and offers a powerful insight into the world in which she lived. Potter’s diaries were discovered in her house several years after her death by a young relation. To the untrained eye, they represented little more than a series of tightly wound scribbles on the page, apparently meaningless, or certainly impossible to decipher. It took Leslie Linder 13 years to decode and transcribe Potter’s journals. In 1966, they were published by Frederick Warne Ltd. as The Journal of Beatrix Potter.
Decode below using her cipher to get final coordinates.
Trail Rules: Please Stay on Path--Clean Up After Your Dog--Closed During Hours of Darkness--No Motorized Vehicles--No Horses--Alcoholic Beverages Prohibited
Trackables, aka TB's will fit in this container. All about trackables here: Travel Bugs
You must sign the physical paper log to claim this find. If you take something, please leave something as well.
Beware of wire and woodchuck holes near the final.
N 43° A.BCD' W 77° 3W.XYZ
