Helen Beatrix Potter, known as Beatrix Potter, was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, her first commercially published work in 1902.

Born into an upper-middle-class household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets and spent holidays in the Lake District, developing a love of landscape, flora and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Her study and watercolours of fungi led to her being widely respected in the field of mycology.

In her thirties, Potter self-published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Following this, she began writing and illustrating children's books full-time, writing over sixty books in total, including her twenty-three children's tales. An entrepreneur, Potter was a pioneer of character merchandising, with Peter Rabbit being the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy.

In 1905, using the proceeds from her books and a legacy from an aunt, Potter bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey, a village in the Lake District. Over the following decades, she purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In 1913, she married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor. Potter was also a prize-winning breeder of Herdwick sheep and a prosperous farmer keenly interested in land preservation.

She continued to write, illustrate, and design merchandise based on her children's books for British publisher Warne until the duties of land management and her diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue. Potter died of pneumonia and heart disease on 22 December 1943 at her home in Near Sawrey, England at the age of 77. She left almost all her property to the National Trust, credited with preserving much of the land that now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Her books continue to sell throughout the world in many languages, with her stories being retold in songs, films, ballet, and animations. Her life is depicted in films like The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1983) and Miss Potter (2006).