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
Robert Roosevelt the United States Fish Commission. Roosevelt was a popular author and a friend of writers such as Oscar Wilde. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym "Barnwell" or "Ira Zell". He edited "Political Works of Charles G. Halpine", supplying a memoir (1869). Robert's nephew Theodore Jr. credited him with being the first to scribe the "Br'er Rabbit" stories (which had been passed down orally by slaves), "publishing them in "Harper's", where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus,' made the stories immortal." Roosevelt was first married to Elizabeth Ellis (1829–1887), a