Hildesheimer & Faulkner bought Beatrix Potter's rabbit designs for Christmas cards, her first commercial success as an illustrator.
Around December 1890, Beatrix Potter achieved her first taste of commercial success when the London publishing firm Hildesheimer & Faulkner purchased several of her illustrations—featuring her pet rabbit Benjamin Bouncer—for use on greeting cards and in a booklet of verses.
This sale was significant because it marked the moment Potter's private hobby of drawing animals, cultivated since childhood, translated into paid professional work. At a time when respectable women of her class were rarely expected to earn independent income, this small transaction represented an early, quiet assertion of financial and creative independence.
The success encouraged her to continue submitting work to publishers and booksellers throughout the 1890s, laying the groundwork for the illustrated animal stories that would later make her famous. It is often cited by biographers as the true beginning of her professional artistic career, more than a decade before The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published.