| Peter Cottontail | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Peter Rabbit |
|
First Appearance |
“How Reddy Fox Was Surprised,” Good Housekeeping Magazine (Apr. 1910) |
|
Original publisher |
Good Housekeeping Research Institute |
|
Created by |
Thornton W. Burgess |
Origin[]
Peter Cottontail is a name temporarily assumed by a fictional rabbit named Peter Rabbit in the works of Thornton Burgess, an author from Sandwich, Massachusetts In 1910, when Burgess began his Old Mother West Wind series, the cast of animals included Peter Rabbit.
Four years later, in The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, Peter Rabbit, unhappy at his plain-sounding name, briefly changed his name to Peter Cottontail because he felt it made him sound more important. He began putting on airs to live up to his important-sounding name, but after much teasing from his friends, soon returned to his original name, because, as he put it, "There's nothing like the old name after all." In the 26-chapter book, he takes on the new name partway through chapter 2, and returns to his "real" name, Peter Rabbit, at the end of chapter 3.
Public Domain Appearances[]
Literary Appearances[]
- Old Mother West Wind, by Thornton W. Burgess (1910) – collected magazine stories
- Mother West Wind’s Children, by Thornton W. Burgess (1911) – collected magazine stories
- Mother West Wind’s Animal Friends, by Thornton W. Burgess (1912)
- The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, by Thornton W. Burgess (1914)
- The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse, by Thornton W. Burgess (1915)
- The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, by Thornton W. Burgess (1917)
- The Adventures of Bobby Coon, by Thornton W. Burgess (1918)
- The Burgess Bird Book for Children, by Thornton W. Burgess (1919)
- Mrs. Peter Rabbit, by Thornton W. Burgess (1919)
- The Burgess Animal Book for Children, by Thornton W. Burgess (1920)
- Peter Rabbit Puts on Airs, by Thornton W. Burgess (1922)
- The Burgess Flower Book for Children, by Thornton W. Burgess (1923)
- Buster Bear’s Twins, by Thornton W. Burgess (1923)
- Little Joe Otter, by Thornton W. Burgess (1925)
- Drawing the Easy Way, by Cobb X. Shinn (1927)
- Longlegs the Heron, by Thornton W. Burgess (1927)
- Jack Frost Arrives on Butternut Hill, by Harrison Cady (1929)
Theatrical and musical appearances[]
- Peter Rabbit in Dreamland (pantomime), libretto by H. S. Tibbs, music by Ted. D. Ward (1915)
Comic Appearances[]
- Peter Rabbit (newspaper strip), by Harrison Cady (1920–1929)
- Peter Rabbit Comics #1-34
- Funny Tunes #1-3
- Lil' Ghost #2-3
- New Adventures of Peter Rabbit #9-13
- Lil' Menace #1-2
- Space Comics (IW) #8
- Space Comics (Avon) #4
- Large Feature Comics #1
- Peter Rabbit's Easter Parade #1
Notes[]
- Burgess continued to write about Peter Rabbit until his retirement in 1960, in over 15,000 daily syndicated newspaper stories, many of them featuring Peter Rabbit, and some of them later published as books, but "Peter Cottontail" is never mentioned again.
- "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" is a popular secular Easter song composed in 1949 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins and is still copyrighted. The name "Peter Cottontail" was used by a character in a 1914 Thornton Burgess book, but may not have been previously used to refer to the Easter Bunny.