Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel--bang, bang, smash, smash! In 1977 Schmid & Co. of Toronto and Randolph, Massachusetts was granted licensing rights to Beatrix Potter, and released two music boxes in 1981: one topped with a porcelain figure of Hunca Munca, and the other with Hunca Munca and her babies. Beginning in 1983, Schmid released a series of small, flat hanging Christmas ornaments depicting various Potter characters including several Hunca Muncas. In 1991, three music boxes were released: Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb in the dolls' bed (playing " Beautiful Dreamer"); Tom Thumb instructing his children about the dangers of mouse traps (" You've Got a Friend"); Hunca Munca spilling the beads from the pantry canister (" Everything is Beautiful"); and the two mice trying to cut the plaster ham ("Close to You"). Another music box released the same year played " Home! Sweet Home!" and depicted the exterior of the doll house, and, when reversed, the interior of the house with the bedroom upstairs and the dining room downstairs. Three separate mouse figurines could be placed here and there in the house. [27] Translations and reprints [ edit ] She was very unfashionably dressed; and wore a coat and skirt and hat, and carried a man's umbrella. She came up to the nursery dressed in her outdoor clothes and asked if she might borrow the policeman doll; Nanny hunted for the doll and eventually found it. It was at least a foot high, and quite out of proportion to the doll's house." [8] The dolls, Lucinda and Jane, and their house The tale begins with "once upon a time" and a description of a "very beautiful doll's-house" belonging to a doll called Lucinda and her cook-doll Jane. Jane never cooks because the doll's-house food is made of plaster and was "bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings". Though the food will not come off the plates, it is "extremely beautiful".

What a sight met the eyes of Jane and Lucinda! Lucinda sat upon the upset kitchen stove and stared; and Jane leant against the kitchen dresser and smiled--but neither of them made any remark. A minute afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal-box. Celebrity Death Match Special: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch versus The Tale of Two Bad Mice So that is the story of the two Bad Mice. But they were not so very, very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke. In December 1903, The Tale of Two Bad Mice was one of three ideas for a possible future book to be published along with The Tale of Benjamin Bunny in 1904 that Beatrix Potter submitted to her publisher Norman Warne. The other two ideas were later developed into Potter's 1905 book The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan and the first chapter of her 1929 book The Fairy Caravan. Although Potter was initially somewhat reluctant to write another tale about mice so soon after the publication of The Tailor of Gloucester, both she and Warne agreed that The Tale of Two Bad Mice was the story idea that had the greatest potential. Norman Warne's decision may have been influenced by the fact that he was making a doll's house as a Christmas present for his four-year-old niece Winifred Warne at the time. Beatrix Potter used Winifred Warne's doll's house as a model for the one that appears in the illustrations in The Tale of Two Bad Mice. The book is dedicated to Winifred Warne.

Read now or download (free!)

On February 12, 1904 Potter wrote to Warne and apologized for not accepting his invitation to Surbiton. She wrote that progress was being made on the mouse tale, and once found Hunca Munca carrying a beribboned doll up the ladder into her nest. She noted that the mouse despised the plaster food. She assured him she could complete the book from photographs. On February 18, 1904 Warne bought the Lucinda and Jane dolls at a shop in Seven Dials and sent them to Potter. Potter wrote: One morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll’s perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fire-place, where there was a hole under the skirting-board. Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel—bang, bang, smash, smash! The little girl that the doll's-house belonged to, said,--"I will get a doll dressed like a policeman!"

The Tale of Two Bad Mice is number five in Beatrix Potter's series of 23 little books, the titles of which are as follows: Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table! There were tin spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly-chairs—all so convenient! On February 25 Warne sent plaster food and miniature furniture from Hamleys, a London toy shop. [8] [9] On April 20 the photographs of the doll's house were delivered, and at the end of May Potter wrote to Warne that eighteen of the mouse drawings were complete, and the remainder were in progress. By the middle of June proofs of the text had arrived, and after a few corrections, Potter wrote on June 28 that she was satisfied with the alterations. Proofs of the illustrations were delivered, and Potter was satisfied with them. [10] In September 1904 20,000 copies of the book were published in two different bindings – one in paper boards and the other in a deluxe binding designed by Potter. The book was dedicated to Winifred Warne, "the girl who had the doll's house". [11] [12] In the frontispiece, Hunca Munca watches as Tom Thumb smashes the plaster food. Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) loved the countryside and spent much of her childhood drawing and studying animals. 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit', first published in 1902, was her first book. She later went on to publish more than twenty tales and collections of rhymes. Are you seeking more books like this? Read our review of the Ten Best Children’s Books About Feelings and Emotions Short story for kids by Beatrix PotterYou see them often?" asked Hunca. Her tone was casual, but Tom immediately caught the edge in her voice. Between 1907 and 1912 Potter wrote miniature letters to children as from characters in her books. The letters reveal more about their characters and their doings. Though many were probably lost or destroyed, a few are extant from the characters in Two Bad Mice. In one, Jane Dollcook has broken the soup tureen and both her legs; in another, Tom Thumb writes to Lucinda asking her to spare a feather bed which she regrets she cannot send because the one he stole was never replaced. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca have nine children and the parents need another kettle for boiling water. Hunca Munca is apparently not a very conscientious housekeeper because Lucinda complains of dust on the mantlepiece. [15] And very early every morning — before anybody is awake — Hunca Munca comes with her dust-pan and her broom to sweep the Dollies' house!” The Tale of Two Bad Mice had its genesis in June 1903 when Potter rescued two mice from a cage-trap in her cousin Caroline Hutton's kitchen at Harescombe Grange, Gloucestershire, and named them Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca after characters in Henry Fielding's play, Tom Thumb. [1] [2] Tom Thumb was never mentioned in Potter's letters after his rescue from the trap (he may have escaped) but Hunca Munca became a pet and a model; she developed an affectionate personality and displayed good housekeeping skills. [2]