An unknown Beatrix Potter story is to be published for the first time in September 100 years after it was written, with illustrations by Quentin Blake.
The existence of The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots was discovered two years ago by publisher Jo Hanks in a letter that Beatrix Potter had sent her publisher in 1914. It mentioned the story of “a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life”, and referred to an unedited manuscript of the tale.
A search through the V&A archive in London revealed three manuscripts handwritten in school notebooks, one rough colour sketch of Kitty-in-Boots, a dummy book with some of the typeset manuscript laid out, and a pencil sketch of arch-villain Mr Tod.
Other letters in the archive show that Potter intended to finish the tale, but “interruptions began” – and continued: from the outbreak of the first world war, to marriage, to sheep farming and colds. Potter never returned to the story and it remained unfinished when she died in 1943.
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