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
Uncle Remus times, African American mothers are known to read the Br'er Rabbit stories to their children to teach them about the significance of protecting the small from the big and the weak from the powerful. Harris modeled Uncle Remus after a man known as "Free Joe" Edwards. In 1885, Free Joe was stabbed to death by Bell Todd in a quarrel over a woman. Todd was convicted of murder. An "Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" newspaper Sundays-only strip (King Features Syndicate) ran from October 14, 1945, through December 31, 1972. The stories have inspired at least three feature