The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1909 and is a sequel to both The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny. Benjamin Bunny has married Peter’s sister Flopsy, and their large family of children discover Mr. McGregor’s compost heap, where they eat too many lettuces and fall asleep. Mr. McGregor finds them and puts them in a sack, intending to sell them. Mrs. Tittlemouse (in a cross-over appearance) alerts Benjamin and Flopsy, who rescue the children by substituting rotten vegetables in the sack.
The book’s famous opening line — “It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’” — is followed by Potter’s parenthetical: “I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit.” This authorial aside — dry, precise, and faintly irritable — is pure Potter.
The Soporific
Potter’s use of “soporific” — a word no small child would know — is deliberate. She never wrote down to her readers, believing that children should meet unfamiliar words in context and learn from them. This principle (shared with Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame) distinguishes Potter from the simplified vocabulary that would dominate twentieth-century children’s publishing.
Collecting The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies
First edition (Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1909): Gray-green boards with mounted color illustration.
Approximate market values:
- Fine: $1,500–$4,000
- Very good: $500–$1,500
Projected values (2026–2036): Steady appreciation in line with the broader Potter market.