Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan.
Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland on May 9th, 1860, the 9th of ten children. His father, David Barrie, was a modestly successful weaver and his mother, Margaret Ogilvie (it was the Scottish fashion in those days for wives to keep their maiden names) was a hardworking woman who assumed her deceased mother's household responsibilities at the age of eight. Although the family was quite poor, she made sure that James and his siblings were educated in at least the three Rs in preparation for possible professional careers. As a small child, he drew attention to himself with storytelling.
At the age of eight, Barrie was sent to the Glasgow Academy in the care of his eldest siblings, Alexander and Mary Ann, who taught there. When he was 10, he returned home and continued his education at the Forfar Academy, and at 14, he left home for Dumfries Academy, again under the watch of his siblings. He became a voracious reader and was fond of penny dreadfuls and the works of Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper.
Barrie knew he wanted to be an author, but his family wanted him to pursue the ministry. Eventually, they reached a compromise in which he would attend a university, but study literature. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh and took up journalism, then worked for a Nottingham newspaper, and contributed to various London journals before moving to London in 1885, where he began writing short stories. A couple of 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 Kallyard 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.
While his earliest play was performed only once, others did well, and his third play Walker, London (1892) resulted in his being introduced to a young actress named Mary Ansell. He proposed to her and they were married on 9 July 1894. Barrie bought her a Saint Bernard puppy, Porthos, who played a part in the 1902 novel The Little White Bird, which is where Peter Pan first appeared. Their marriage was apparently not a happy one; they had no children, and divorced in 1909 after Mary had an affair.
It was also during this time (1897) that James met the Llewelyn Davies family, the five sons of which were a huge inspiration for Peter Pan. He became a regular visitor with the family, and drew even closer after Mr. Arthur Llewelyn Davies died in 1907. Barrie later unofficially adopted the boys following the death of their mother Sylvia in 1910.
He continued on to write plays, and in 1901 and 1902, he had back-to-back successes. Peter Pan is his most remembered work today, but he was very nervous when he first gave it to his theatrical manager in 1904. It was a child's fantasy and was the first and only time he had ever written especially for children. But Peter Pan, with its flying and theatrical devices, was a huge success and continues to be performed today. In 1911, Barrie turned his play into the novel Peter and Wendy, and it remains one of the most thrilling and magical of all the adventures that have been written for children.
Before his death of pneumonia on June 19th, 1937, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which continues to benefit from them.
Illustrators for Peter Pan:
- F.D. Bedford
- Edmund Blampied
- Michael Conway
- Michael Foreman
- Scott Gustafson
- Michael Hague
- Greg Hildebrandt
- Trina Schart Hyman
- Robert Ingpen
- Robert Labuda
- Debra McFarlane
- Scott McKowen
- Arthur Rackham
- Nora S. Unwin
- Flora White
- Alice Woodward
- Minalima Edition
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