McGregor is puzzled by the ridiculously small footprints, the scarecrow's missing clothes and the cat locked in the greenhouse. Background In 1901, Potter privately published The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and, in 1902, Frederick Warne & Co. published a trade edition of the book, which was hugely successful. In 1904, she followed Peter Rabbit with its sequel, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, and continued the rabbit saga in 1909 with The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and in 1912 with The Tale of Mr. Tod. All the tales were in part inspired by Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, which Potter illustrated as early as 1893 in an attempt to find a career direction. Potter was unable to successfully translate Harris's characters to the English country garden, but she transformed the American author's "lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity" to "lippity-lippity" in Peter Rabbit, and used his "rabbit tobacco" (lavender) in Benjamin Bunny and Mr. Tod. None of her rabbit characters were based on Br'er Rabbit; Harris's rabbit wins by cunning, but Potter's Benjamin and Peter win by pure luck. Potter scholar Ruth K. MacDonald has assessed the rabbit universe in Potter as a more pleasant place than that found in Harris's stories. Composition and publication In July 1903, Potter suggested to her publisher Frederick Warne & Co. that the book to follow The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester ought to be something less complex than the two previous productions. She had several possible stories in mind and outlined them for the firm, but was anxious to settle on a choice as quickly as possible to guide her sketching while on holiday. It was decided between Potter and her publisher that one of the two books for 1904 would be Benjamin Bunny. Benjamin Bunny had been mentioned in the manuscript of the privately printed edition of Peter Rabbit but had been dropped as irrelevant to the tale. A picture of his father was included in the private edition although he has no part in the story. Potter was sensitive to the beginnings and endings of her books and usually avoided the conventional at those key places. The publisher did not like the Benjamin Bunny ending, but she refused to alter it to their suggested "happily ever after" because such an ending in her estimation was "rather trite" and "inexact". She suggested the last paragraph as it now appears in the