A ‘LOST’ story by Lake District children’s author Beatrix Potter has been welcomed with open arms after it was published today - more than 100 years after it was written.

Kitty-in-Boots has been received with excitement in South Lakeland, reflecting the special relationship locals have with Potter’s works, which were greatly inspired by the Lake District.

“We have received inquiries about Kitty-in-Boots all year”, said Nina Bleasdale, who works at Waterstones bookshop in the Westmorland Shopping Centre in Kendal.

“And over the coming days we are sure to have more people asking for it. Currently the stock is slightly limited but it will now be sold here forever and ever.”

And the book looks set to be popular worldwide, with customers visiting the Kendal bookshop telling that they are going to mail their copy to family members who live abroad.

“A lot of people are sending them to other countries as they have family abroad, places like America and Australia,” said Nina.

“The book will be published in those places as well, but it’s the relationship with Beatrix Potter that people have in this area that makes them send the hard copy anyway.”

Describing the tale as being about ‘a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads a rather double life’, Beatrix Potter never completed the story as ‘irruptions began’ in her life, including World War One, her marriage to Hawkshead solicitor William Heelis, farming and illness.

Although famous for illustrating her own stories, the author only completed one drawing for The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots and so the illustrations have been drawn by Quentin Blake, most famous for illustrating the works of Roald Dahl.

Despite being described as a ‘lost’ story by Potter’s publishers the Penguin Random House, scholars have been well aware of the story’s existence and its earlier publication four decades ago.

Dating back to 1914, the manuscript was featured as a full text in Leslie Linder’s 1971 book 'A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter', together with the only finished drawing, a colour frontispiece.

The process of publishing the manuscript as its own piece of work today began two years ago when Jo Hanks from Penguin Random House came across a reference to the manuscript in the Leslie Linder's biography of the author.

Nina said: "I don’t know if there are more works by her which have not been discovered."