Dame Helen Mirren to Narrate a New Beatrix Potter Audiobook

By Maryann Yin 

Helen Mirren (GalleyCat)Dame Helen Mirren will serve as a narrator for the audiobook edition of The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots. This Academy Award-winning actress (pictured, via) has become well-known for taking on roles in literary-themed movies such as The Tempest, The Hundred-Foot Journey, and Trumbo.

Here’s more from the press release: “The manuscript by Beatrix Potter was rediscovered two years ago when Jo Hanks, publisher at Penguin Random House Children’s UK, stumbled across an out-of-print literary history about Beatrix Potter from the early 1970s. Hanks found in the book both a reference to a letter that Potter had sent her publisher in 1914, which referred to a story about ‘a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life,’ and an unedited manuscript of the tale.”

Sir Quentin Blake came on board to create the interior artwork and the cover art for the print edition. The release date for both the print book and the audiobook has been set for September 6.