Well, mine that I've just bought do seem to be printed on high quality paper — "thick and slightly shiny and smooth" would fit it as a description — but I don't know if it's any different from what was used in earlier editions. We had a few older copies when I was little, but I can't remember what the paper was like and I don't have them with me to compare.
Rob Houghton wrote:I did like the fact they sailed across the lake using their tails for sails (if I'm remembering right - its a while since I read it!)
They did!
According to the biography I've just read (
The Story of Beatrix Potter by Sarah Gristwood), Beatrix spent her summer holiday in 1897 at Lingholm, near Keswick in the northern Lake District, and she wrote afterwards — annoyingly, the biography doesn't give a reference, so I don't know if this is from her journal or a letter to a friend:
"There is a lady who lives on an island in the lake who told me some curious things about animals swimming... Also when her nuts are ripe, squirrels appear on the island, but she has not seen them coming. There is an American story that squirrels go down the rivers on little rafts, using their tails for sails, but I think the Keswick squirrels must swim."
So Beatrix a few years later took those elements — including the squirrels sailing on rafts! — and invented the story of Squirrel Nutkin. The lake near Keswick is Derwent Water, which we're told she depicted very accurately in her illustrations for the book, but I didn't get that far north this time, so I haven't seen it for myself.
Incidentally, I remember reading that
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin was also C.S. Lewis's favourite when he was a child (he was born in 1898 and it was published in 1902, so these books were brand new when he was reading them!). That and other Beatrix Potter stories must definitely have had some influence on his own imaginings of animals that can talk like humans yet retain their essential animal characteristics as well.