A Never Before Seen Image of Peter Rabbit
Were you to desire to possess the complete works of Beatrix Potter, you would have two options. You could buy either the World of Peter Rabbit box of books that fit snugly in your hand (see above). The name puts you in mind of Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, treating the books as if they constitute some synoptic view of an imagined place. Your second choice would be a singe volume edition of Beatrix Potter the Complete Tales. All those small books are thus compressed into a single volume. Beatrix Potter wrote the books in this series between 1902 and 1918.
This kind of “completism”—even in children’s literature!—is a notable development of our time. The fact that we take the availability of the complete world of Peter Rabbit in stride is worth reflecting upon. We expect the complete and collected versions of TV shows, books, and movies. We go further than this, though, and even try to get an original and more authentic version when possible. The “director’s cut” is popular in film, but this same aesthetic has trickled down to Beatrix Potter. Here is the publisher’s note in the front material of Peter Rabbit:
Most notably this edition restores six extra illustrations. Four of these (pages 10, 18, 49 and 62) were sacrificed in 1903 to make space for illustrated endpapers. The other two (pages 33 and 54) have never been used before, Beatrix Potter having initially prepared more illustrations than could be accommodated in the original format.
So this is Peter Rabbit as it was meant to be experienced! The true vision is finally available. It is fascinating to follow up on this publishers note and figure out what has been added. Here is one example. You might remember the part where Peter Rabbit is running from Mr. McGregor and loses his shoes. The first one is lost among the cabbages:
image from Peter Rabbit
That is only one shoe accounted for in the image. The text goes on to explain that the other shoe was lost “amongst the potatoes.” In Potter’s original version—but cut from the published version—there was a simple image of a shoe next to some potatoes, a bird standing beside it. The image is under copyright, so I won’t reproduce it. It’s a nice image, but not transformative by any means. To make use of the image the published text at several points had to be cut and pasted onto a new page created for the newly inserted image.
In my opinion it was a mistake to re-work the classic Peter Rabbit like this. The gains just aren’t clear and there’s something to be said for holding the same Peter Rabbit as generations of children and parents read. In the end that’s what is important about the book. The reasons for giving the book the “director’s cut” treatment isn’t hard to think of. Since Peter Rabbit was published in 1902 it is in the public domain, but any re-working of the text and introduction of new images effectively makes this a new book.. one that’s illegal to copy. So we do well to be suspicious of the “director’s cut” treatment. It may not be for our fuller understanding, but rather for locking up profits on something that should not be a vehicle of profit anymore. A second reason for this treatment is simply that it’s possible. As prices for image reproduction fall, and as computerized publishing makes the addition of pages quite simple, there’s no reason not to include more.. and more and more. The former checks on expansion, often connected to the mechanics of book production, are gone and so the attitude seems to be “why not?”
This phenomenon is obviously much broader than Beatrix Potter. So many CDs that I buy now have additional tracks on them. Here is the back of the first solo album by Paul Simon, with the track listing:
There you see the original tracks for the album, but then three extra “bonus tracks.” Bob Dylan or the Beatles release demos and alternative versions as full albums, but slightly lesser artists such as Paul Simon or The Who have their extra tracks tacked onto the end of their “remastered” CDs. I evaluate these much like I do the added illustrations for Peter Rabbit.. which is to say, they are always overrated in value and sometimes do actual damage to the experience of an album. The tracks also stem from the desire on the part of the record company to give a positive reason for buying this new CD. At the same time there’s the open digital space of a CD, which can make the music on an album from the 70s seem sparse.. so why not add extras?
