In the high summer days of late Victorian and Edwardian England, famous children’s author Beatrix Potter (Renee Zellweger) develops her natural skills as artist and story-teller. When she finally publishes her debut book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, she becomes a writing celebrity.

It also leads to courtship and her first love with publisher Norman Warne, played by Ewan McGregor. Their relationship and his marriage proposal in July, 1905, was to change Beatrix’s life for ever. It was a love which she could not announce – or even talk about. In high-society London, her parents had insisted she keep it from friends and neighbours. They considered her proposed wedding a mismatch.

Beatrix allowed herself to be persuaded to leave her fiancé and London. It was supposed to be a time for reflection and calm. But, instead, she faced tragedy and loneliness and returned to London with a different outlook. Despite becoming the world’s most successful children’s writer and a wealthy landowner and prize-winning farmer, she never forgot her first love.