Peter Pan

By J.M. Barrie

1911

First Published

4.04

Average Rating

200

Number of Pages

6H00M

Audio Length

Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with whom he had forged a special relationship. Mrs Llewelyn Davies' death from cancer came within a few years after the death of her husband. Barrie was named as coguardian of the boys & unofficially adopted them. The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys, & Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. It's also been suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at 13 deeply affected their mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie & the Lost Boys, the death was 'a catastrophe beyond belief, & one from which she never fully recovered. If Margaret Ogilvy drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration. The Peter Pan character 1st appeared in print in the 1902 novel The Little White Bird, written for adults, a fictionalised version of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children. The character was next used in the very successful stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up that premiered in London on 12/27/04. In 1906, the portion of The Little White Bird which featured Peter was published as the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie then adapted the play into the 1911 novel Peter & Wendy--often now published simply as Peter Pan. The original draft of the play was entitled simply Anon: A Play. Barrie's working titles for it included The Great White Father & Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Hated Mothers. Producer Charles Frohman disliked the title on the manuscript, in answer to which Barrie reportedly suggested The Boy Who Couldn't Grow Up.

Avg Rating

4.04

Number of Ratings

361,063

5 STARS

40%

4 STARS

33%

3 STARS

20%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

J.M. Barrie

Author · 46 books

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism, worked for a Nottingham newspaper, and contributed to various London journals before moving to London in 1885. His early works, Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889), contain fictional sketches of Scottish life and are commonly seen as representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next 10 years Barrie continued writing novels, but gradually his interest turned toward the theatre. In London he met the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired him in writing about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a "fairy play" about this ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. This play quickly overshadowed his previous work and although he continued to write successfully, it became his best-known work, credited with popularising the name Wendy, which was very uncommon previously. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which continues to benefit from them.