The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots will be illustrated by Quentin Blake.
A new tale by Beatrix Potter will be published in September, after the manuscript was rediscovered two years ago by a publisher at Penguin Random House.
The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots was found by Jo Hanks when she stumbled across an out of print literary history about Beatrix Potter from the early 1970s.
Jo found in the book both a reference letter that Beatrix had sent to her publisher in 1914 – which referred to a story about ‘a well behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life’ – and an unedited manuscript of the tale.
Other letters in the archive revealed that Beatrix intended to finish the tale but ‘interruptions began’, beginning with World War I and continuing with marriage, to sheep farming and colds.
“The tale really is the best of Beatrix Potter,” Jo Hanks, publisher at PRH Children’s, said. “It has double identities, colourful villains and a number of favourite characters from other tales. And, most excitingly, our treasured, mischievous Peter Rabbit makes an appearance – albeit older, slower and portlier.”
The book will be illustrated by Quentin Blake who said that he “liked the story immediately and I was fascinated to think that I was being asked to draw pictures for it”.
The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots will be published in hardback on September 1, 150 years after Beatrix Potter’s birth and just over a centenary after she penned the tale.
