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 Cincinnati region. George Remus George Remus (November 14, 1874 – January 20, 1952) was an American lawyer and bootlegger during the Prohibition era. Remus was known to have referred to himself in the third person after his rise to power during the early days of Prohibition, which he reportedly continued to do until his death. It has been claimed that he was the inspiration for the title character Jay Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Remus was born in Berlin, Germany in 1874 to Frank and Maria Remus. Remus' family moved to Chicago by the time he