marriage-30-3000 - The Monday Morning Memo

“After becoming famous for her tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter began The Tale of Mr. Tod with a particularly good opening sentence: ‘I am quite tired of making goody-goody books about nice people.’ Her publisher threw a fit and insisted she change it to some less abrupt. She responded, ‘If it were not impertinent to lecture one’s publisher, you are a great deal too much afraid of the public for whom I have never cared one tuppeny-button. I am sure that it is this attitude of mind which has enabled me to keep up the series. Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.'”

- John Lanchester, from 'The Heroine of Hill Top Farm'

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