Potter began spending more time at the firm's offices and took several trips to Warne's home to sketch a doll's house he was constructing for his nieces.

[4] In 1894, Frederick Warne retired from active management of the Bedford Street publishing firm bearing his name in London and ceded control to his three sons, Harold, Fruing, and Norman, before his death in 1905.

Norman Warne's brothers were both married men, but when the 35-year-old Potter met him in 1901 he was a 33-year-old bachelor living with his widowed mother and his unmarried sister Amelia ("Millie") in the family house in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury.

She arrived in the Potter carriage with the elderly family cook Elizabeth Harper (or other servant as chaperone) or her fellow illustrator and friend Gertrude Woodward.

Potter's letters reveal a friendship was developing between the author and her editor-publisher as they discussed possibilities for future tales (Squirrel Nutkin and Mr. Jeremy Fisher in particular) and the complexities of the printing process.

[6] In 1903, Potter wrote to Warne that she was giving thought to a Peter Rabbit sequel to follow The Tailor of Gloucester and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin but learned Norman had left London on a selling trip.

[8] She responded positively to Warne's growing appreciation of her professionalism and her artistry; they discussed the development of her works step-by-step and she realised his criticism and his advice always improved the product.

A firestorm was unleashed in the Potter household: her parents vehemently objected to her union with a man they considered their social inferior, a tradesman without professional accomplishment.

Warne died in his bedroom in Bedford Square on 25 August of pernicious anemia brought on by lymphatic leukaemia, a disease difficult to diagnose at that time.