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When the tailor becomes sick and cannot finish the waistcoat for the Mayor, the mice finish it for him.Tags
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My spouse came home from a week in New Hampshire "worn to a raveling". Now, from whence comes that phrase? Well, Google says it's from The Tailor of Gloucester, so naturally, we had to hunt through our mouldering collection of Beatrix Potter books to read it. And so we have.
Basically it's the tale of an old guy with spectacles and crooked fingers—kinda like me—who must prepare a waistcoat for the Mayor's Christmas Day wedding. He gets all the cloth cut and set out, but he has "no more twist", something needed for button holes. Then, because he is worn to a raveling, he gets sick. So what happens? Well read it yourself. It's a rather short, but GoodRead, after all, it has a cat and many sweet little mice in it.
Basically it's the tale of an old guy with spectacles and crooked fingers—kinda like me—who must prepare a waistcoat for the Mayor's Christmas Day wedding. He gets all the cloth cut and set out, but he has "no more twist", something needed for button holes. Then, because he is worn to a raveling, he gets sick. So what happens? Well read it yourself. It's a rather short, but GoodRead, after all, it has a cat and many sweet little mice in it.
This delightful story was the author's own favourite, and is the only one whose central character is a human being rather than an animal. I was prompted to read this following a visit to Gloucester for its annual history festival, which included a short Beatrix Potter walk round the city centre. The story is based on the life of a real Gloucester tailor, John Prichard, but the house now occupied by the Beatrix Potter museum and touted in the book as the tailor's shop in College Court is not the historical Prichard's shop, which was in nearby Westgate and is now the (very unassuming) Sword Inn. Anyway, it is of course a charming story.
I'm reading the excellent biography "The Tale of Beatrix Potter" and this is bringing me back to her books. This one is a charming and delicate story of a sick tailor and some grateful mice and is all the more appreciated when you learn that the buildings and tailor's shop are sketched from real places and the fabrics from samples in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I was also delighted to discover that the newspaper one of the mice is reading (The Tailor & Cutter) is a real paper and that it reviewed the book when it was first published in 1903:
"...we think it is by far the prettiest story connected with tailoring we have ever read, and as it is full of that spirit of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, we are not ashamed to confess that show more it brought the moisture to our eyes, as well as the smile to our face. It is got up in choicest style and illustrated by twenty-seven of the prettiest pictures it is possible to imagine"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tailor_of_Gloucester#Reception show less
"...we think it is by far the prettiest story connected with tailoring we have ever read, and as it is full of that spirit of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, we are not ashamed to confess that show more it brought the moisture to our eyes, as well as the smile to our face. It is got up in choicest style and illustrated by twenty-seven of the prettiest pictures it is possible to imagine"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tailor_of_Gloucester#Reception show less
Sort of a take on The Elves and the Shoemaker, this little drama involves a tailor, a cat and numerous mice. I say drama because it covers the human traits of resentment, vengeance, kindness, charity and repentance, all without one word of preaching.
The illustrations are charming, and the cat is perfectly in character. There is a museum in England which has the waistcoat which Potter used as inspiration for her lovely pictures with the "cherry-coloured twist." A sweet little insight into the fashion lives of history.
The illustrations are charming, and the cat is perfectly in character. There is a museum in England which has the waistcoat which Potter used as inspiration for her lovely pictures with the "cherry-coloured twist." A sweet little insight into the fashion lives of history.
I wish they still had these types of industrious mice nowadays. Mice who will hear your frantic plea for help to complete a deadline at work...and then they'll come running to complete your powerpoint presentation or spreadsheet. Maybe because they're from Gloucester?
Allen Atkinson's lovely illustrations make the Beatrix Potter classic even better. The tailor and his helpful mice made such an impression on me when I was small that I actually visited Gloucester. I never found the little rodents, but I did find one of those wonderful alleys full of shops. Certainly, the little ones were busy at work in one of those stores.
"And then I bought
A pipkin and a popkin,
A slipkin and a slopkin,
All for one farthing"
Book Season = Year Round
Allen Atkinson's lovely illustrations make the Beatrix Potter classic even better. The tailor and his helpful mice made such an impression on me when I was small that I actually visited Gloucester. I never found the little rodents, but I did find one of those wonderful alleys full of shops. Certainly, the little ones were busy at work in one of those stores.
"And then I bought
A pipkin and a popkin,
A slipkin and a slopkin,
All for one farthing"
Book Season = Year Round
This is a sweet story of an impoverished older man who is helped by tint mice to make a jacket for the mayors wedding, which he was too sick to make otherwise. It is one of the longer Potter stories but there are also some fun lyrical rhymes that children can engage in.
This is the sweet story about how mice come and save the day for an old tailor man. The tailor was falling quite ill, but had a big job to do for the major. Realizing how weak he is, little tiny mice come to the rescue and help him finish the job for the major. I think this book was cute, but to be honest it lost me at times. I understood the gist of the story, but I was taken back a few times and had to read it over.
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Author Information
1,444+ Works 89,238 Members
(Helen) Beatrix Potter, 1866 - 1943 (Helen) Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 in London where she was privately educated. During most of her adult life, she lived in a farm cottage in Sawrey, Westmoreland County. She was unsuccessful in trying to publish her serious botanical work, watercolor studies of fungi, but she wrote and privately published show more "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" for an invalid child in 1900. This story became a children's classic throughout the world. Other animal characters created by her include, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Her tales are illustrated by her own hand in delicate and detailed watercolor pictures depicting her characters. Potter's other works include "The Tailor of Gloucester" published in 1902 and "The Tale of Tom Kitten" published in 1907. At her death in 1943, she bequeathed her property in Sawrey to the National Trust, which also maintains her home as a museum. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Tailor of Gloucester
- Original title
- The tailor of Gloucester
- Original publication date
- 1903
- People/Characters
- The Tailor of Gloucester; Simpkin
- Important places
- Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, UK; Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Important events
- Christmas
- Epigraph*
- [Dim]
- Dedication
- My Dear Freda,
Because you are fond of fairy-
tales, and have been ill, I have
made you a story all for yourself
--a new one that nobody has read
before.
And the quee... (show all)rest thing about it
is--that I heard it in Gloucester-
shire, and that it is true--at least
about the tailor, the waistcoat, and
the
"No more twist!"
Christmas, 1991 - First words
- In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentleman wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The stitches of those button-holes were so small - so small - they looked as if they had been made by little mice!
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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