Since its release, the book has generated considerable merchandise for both children and adults, including toys, dishes, foods, clothing, and videos.

Peter Rabbit has remained popular amongst children for more than a century and continues to be adapted into new book editions, television programmes, and films.

Scholars of literature have commented on themes in the book, such as its radical quality, Peter Rabbit's rebellious nature, and the story's ruthlessness, stating that these offer readers a chance to imagine going to similar extremes.

In 1893, Beatrix Potter heard that the 5-year-old son of a friend, Annie Moore, was convalescing after scarlet fever.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit was first published in the United Kingdom by Frederick Warne & Co. as a small hardback book in October 1901; Potter created both the text and the illustrations.

[3] The blocks for the illustrations and text were sent to the printer Edmund Evans for engraving, and Potter adjusted the page proofs.

[5] The book was soon on sale in shops in London, including Harrods department store, accompanied by the world's first licensed character, a soft toy of Peter Rabbit.

[6] The book's success prompted Warne to obtain more stories from Potter, starting in 1903 with both The Tailor of Gloucester and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin.

She cites Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott's description of Peter as a "naughty boy who values his independence and whose desire to transgress boundaries far outweighs his mother's warnings or his personal safety".

In their view, Peter Rabbit's qualities such as ruthlessness and defiance allow Potter to speak of her own self-knowledge; this serves both as an outlet for a woman in the strict Victorian era, and as a place for her young readers to imagine going to similar extremes.

[16] She was the first to exploit the commercial possibilities of her characters and tales; between 1903 and 1905 these included a Peter Rabbit stuffed toy, an unpublished board game, and nursery wallpaper.

[17] The scholar Margaret Mackey writes that Warne was still attempting to prevent other publishers from printing The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1993, despite the failure to protect the copyright 90 years earlier.

In her view "the battle has clearly been lost", as multiple editions and formats exist in North America, and some "even in Britain" where the book was still protected at that time.

[18] In 1989, Warne further printed Scenes from The Tale of Peter Rabbit with "five three-dimensional cut-out pictures from the book, tagged with quotations from the story.

"[18] Among the seemingly-pirated editions, one by Ottenheimer Publishers in 1993 printed only a selection of the illustrations with the text, with larger but fewer pages.

One such is Warne's Meet Peter Rabbit, a board book for babies with five pictures inside and one on the front cover, along with Beatrix Potter's name.

"[18] In 1938, shortly after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney became interested in making an animated film based on The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

However, in a letter to a friend, Potter wrote that she refused Walt Disney's "scheme to film Peter Rabbit", saying, "I am not very hopeful about the result.