The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies sequels are the best known and most successful of Potter's books. The author had an affinity for rabbits; she lived with them as pets and observed them closely for years. Though she once wrote that rabbits were creatures of "warm volatile temperaments" and were "shallow and extremely transparent", she invested her rabbits with a variety of characterizations consistent with the nature of the animal. All the rabbit tales were inspired in part by Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, which Potter began illustrating as early as 1893 in an attempt to find career direction and probably because they featured a
George Remus so that he could sell it illegally. Remus moved to Cincinnati, where 80 percent of America's bonded whiskey was located within a 300 mile radius, and bought up most of the whiskey manufacturers. In less than three years Remus made $40 million with the help of his trusted number two man George Conners. Remus owned many of America's most famous distilleries, including the Fleischmann Distillery, which Remus bought for $197,000, a price which included 3,100 gallons of whiskey. In addition to serving the Cincinnati community, many other small towns, such as Newport, Kentucky, began serving as drinking towns where gamblers