Clogs, sketchbooks and an iconic waistcoat will be on display alongside hundreds of other literary artifacts later this month when a major new exhibition telling the life story of children’s writer Beatrix Potter s will open in London.

Beatrix Potter: drawn to nature is a collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Trust. It will include letters written throughout Potter’s lifetime, family photographs, early sketchbooks, manuscripts and coded diaries. Illustrations from his books will feature alongside sketches of the real animals and the places that inspired them.

The exhibition will also highlight Beatrix Potter’s deep interest in the natural world, particularly the study of fungi, around her Lake District home, as well as her career as a writer and businesswoman. clever.

“Visitors will be introduced to the extraordinary legacy of Potter’s storybooks,” said Annemarie Bilclough, Curator of Frederick Warne Illustration at the V&A, “but in this exhibition they will discover how his talent for making his characters real was born out of a lifelong curiosity for the little details in nature, which could have led her to another career. We hope to inspire the next generation of artists and storytellers, but also naturalists, conservationists, environment and farmers.