From Eastwood, Dunkeld, Potter sent five-year-old Noel Moore an illustrated letter about her pet rabbit Peter, the seed of her famous tale.
On 4 September 1893, while on holiday at Eastwood near Dunkeld in Scotland, Beatrix Potter wrote an illustrated letter to Noel Moore, the five-year-old son of her former governess Annie Moore, to cheer him during an illness. The letter told the story of 'four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter' and was accompanied by simple pen-and-ink sketches.
This letter is historically significant as the direct origin of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, one of the best-selling children's books of all time. Years later, at Annie Moore's suggestion, Potter borrowed back the letter and expanded it into the manuscript that she would first self-publish in 1901 and which Frederick Warne & Co. would commercially release in 1902.
The letter exemplifies Potter's habit of writing illustrated 'picture letters' to the children of friends and former governesses, a practice that reveals both her storytelling gift and the constrained domestic sphere in which she initially exercised her creativity—through private correspondence rather than public authorship.