Helen Beatrix Potter, commonly known as Beatrix Potter, was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her beloved children's books featuring animal characters, particularly The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was 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 deep love of landscape, flora, and fauna, which she closely observed and painted. Her study and watercolors of fungi gained her respect 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, eventually writing over sixty books, with the best known being her twenty-three children's tales.

In 1905, using proceeds from her books and a legacy from an aunt, Potter acquired 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, at the age of 47, 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.

Potter continued to write, illustrate, and design merchandise based on her children's books until her duties in land management and diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue. She passed away from pneumonia and heart disease on 22 December 1943 at her home in Near Sawrey, England, leaving almost all her property to the National Trust. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now constitutes the Lake District National Park. Her books continue to sell worldwide in many languages, and her stories have been adapted into songs, films, ballet, and animations.