Jessica Miller

Far better than their garden in London and the zoo at Regent's Park, though, was the wild countryside of England's Lake District and Perthshire, Scotland, where the Potter family often went on holidays.

In Perthshire, Beatrix would have walked across wild moors and through thick forests, where rivers and waterfalls tumbled over mossy rocks.

In the Lake District, the potters stayed at Lake Windermere, a glacial lake nestled in the district's green, rolling hills.

Beatrix would have wandered the lake's edge, and even rode out to visit the islands scattered across the middle of it.

Beatrix loved the feeling of freedom that came with roaming across the countryside for hours.

In the Lake District, she learned to ride a horse and track, and then she could travel to even further-flung destinations.

At the end of every holiday, the Potter family returned to their comfortable life in London.

Beatrix always felt her heart belonged to those wilder, less cultivated landscapes, and she would return to them time and time again.

When Bertram was sent to boarding school to continue his education, Beatrix was left alone with her governess and lady's companion, Annie Moore.

Annie encouraged Beatrix's artistic passions, but Beatrix's interest in the sciences also flourished.

She filled sketchbook after sketchbook with highly detailed, biologically accurate depictions of flora and fauna.

In her late teens, Beatrix was accepted to the National Art Training School, where she took courses in drawing and painting.

Beatrix was a diligent student, spending many afternoons copying the work of master painters like Constable and Van Dyck at the Royal Academy's exhibition.

She was skeptical about some of the advice her teachers gave her.

She felt their insistence on doing things the right way sapped all the life and energy from her drawings.

Although she devoted herself to art, Beatrix was still passionate about science.

In fact, she found ways to bring her two passions together.

She could often be seen in the grand halls of London's Museum of Natural History, bent over her sketchbook as she made an exacting copy of whichever specimen had caught her eye that day.

In her late teens and early twenties, Beatrix drew insects, fossils, moths, birds, mosses, and lichens.

But more than anything else, she sketched mushrooms.