Peter and Wendy

Peter and Wendy

- By James Matthew Barrie
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British novelist and playwright (1860–1937) SirJ. M. BarrieBt OMPortrait by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1892BornJames Matthew Barrie(1860-05-09)9 May 1860Kirriemuir, Angus, ScotlandDied19 June 1937(1937-06-19) (aged 77)London, EnglandResting placeKirriemuir Cemetery, AngusOccupationNovelistplaywrightEducationGlasgow AcademyForfar AcademyDumfries AcademyAlma materUniversity of EdinburghPeriodVictorianEdwardianGenreChildren's literaturedramafantasyNotable worksThe Little White BirdPeter PanThe Admirable CrichtonSpouse Mary Ansell ​ ​(m. 1894; div. 1909)​ChildrenGuardian of the Llewelyn Davies boysSignatureWebsitejmbarrie.co.ukjmbarriesociety.co.uk Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (/ˈbæri/; 9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the name Wendy.[1] Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913,[2] and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours.[3] Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them. Childhood and adolescence[edit] James Matthew Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, to a conservative Calvinist family. His father, David Barrie, was a modestly successful weaver. His mother, Margaret Ogilvy, assumed her deceased mother's household responsibilities at the age of eight. Barrie was the ninth child of ten (two of whom died before he was born), all of whom were schooled in at least the three Rs in preparation for possible professional careers.[4] He was a small child and drew attention to himself with storytelling.[5] He grew to only 5 ft 31⁄2 in. (161 cm) according to his 1934 passport.[6] When James Barrie was six years old, his elder brother David (their mother's favourite) died in an ice-skating accident on the day before his 14th birthday.[7] This left his mother devastated, and Barrie tried to fill David's place in his mother's attentions, even wearing David's clothes and whistling in the manner that he did. One time, Barrie entered her room and heard her say, "Is that you?" "I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to", wrote Barrie in his biographical account of his mother Margaret Ogilvy (1896) "and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me.'" Barrie's mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her.[8] Eventually, Barrie and his mother entertained each other with stories of her brief childhood and books such as Robinson Crusoe, works by fellow Scotsman Walter Scott, and The Pilgrim's Progress.[9] 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 at the school. When he was 10, he returned home and continued his education at the Forfar Academy. At 14, he left home for Dumfries Academy, again under the watch of Alexander and Mary Ann. He became a voracious reader and was fond of penny dreadfuls and the works of Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. At Dumfries, he and his friends spent time in the garden of Moat Brae house, playing pirates "in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan".[10][11] They formed a drama club, producing his first play Bandelero the Bandit, which provoked a minor controversy following a scathing moral denunciation from a clergyman on the school's governing board.[9] Literary career[edit] Barrie in 1892 Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. However, his family attempted to persuade him to choose a profession such as the ministry. With advice from Alexander, he was able to work out a compromise: he would attend a university but would study literature.[12] Barrie enrolled at the University of Edinburgh where he wrote drama reviews for the Edinburgh Evening Courant. He graduated and obtained an M.A. on 21 April 1882.[12] Following a job advertisement found by his sister in The Scotsman, he worked for a year and a half as a staff journalist on the Nottingham Journal.[12] Back in Kirriemuir, he submitted a piece to the St. James's Gazette, a London newspaper, using his mother's stories about the town where she grew up (renamed "Thrums"). The editor "liked that Scotch thing" so well that Barrie ended up writing a series of these stories.[9] They served as the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1889),[13] and The Little Minister (1891). Some of Barrie's novels The stories depicted the "Auld Lichts", a strict religious sect to which his grandfather had once belonged.[14] Modern literary criticism of these early works has been unfavourable, tending to disparage them as sentimental and nostalgic depictions of a parochial Scotland, far from the realities of the industrialised 19th century, seen as characteristic of what became known as the Kailyard School.[15] Despite, or perhaps because of, this, they were popular enough at the time to establish Barrie as a successful writer.[14] Following that success, he published Better Dead (1888) privately and at his own expense, but it failed to sell.[16] His two "Tommy" novels, Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900), were about a boy and young man who clings to childish fantasy, with an unhappy ending. The English novelist George Gissing read the former in November 1896 and wrote that he "thoroughly dislike[d it]".[17] Meanwhile, Barrie's attention turned increasingly to works for the theatre, beginning with a biography of Richard Savage, written by Barrie and H. B. Marriott Watson; it was performed only once and critically panned. He immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost, or Toole Up-to-Date (1891), a parody of Henrik Ibsen's dramas Hedda Gabler and Ghosts.[14] Ghosts had been unlicensed in the UK until 1914,[18] but had created a sensation at the time from a single "club" performance. Peter Pan statue (1912) by Sir George Frampton in Kensington Gardens, London The production of Ibsen's Ghost at Toole's Theatre in London was seen by William Archer, the translator of Ibsen's works into English. Apparently comfortable with the parody, he enjoyed the humour of the play and recommended it to others. Barrie's 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. He used Ansell's first name for many characters in his novels.[14] Barrie also authored Jane Annie, a comic opera for Richard D'Oyly Carte (1893), which failed; he persuaded Arthur Conan Doyle to revise and finish it for him. In 1901 and 1902, he had back-to-back successes; Quality Street was about a respectable, responsible old maid who poses as her own flirtatious niece to try to win the attention of a former suitor returned from the war. The Admirable Crichton was a critically acclaimed social commentary with elaborate staging, about an aristocratic family and their household servants whose social order is inverted after they are shipwrecked on a desert island. Max Beerbohm thought it "quite the best thing that has happened, in my time, to the British theatre".[19] The character of "Peter Pan" first appeared in The Little White Bird. The novel was published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in 1902, and serialised in the US in the same year in Scribner's Magazine.[20] Barrie's more famous and enduring work Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on 27 December 1904 at the West End’s Duke of York's Theatre.[21] This play introduced audiences to the name Wendy; it was inspired by a young girl named Margaret Henley who called Barrie "Friendy", but could not pronounce her Rs very well. The Bloomsbury scenes show the societal constraints of late Victorian and Edwardian middle class domestic reality, contrasted with Neverland, a world where morality is ambivalent. George Bernard Shaw described the play as "ostensibly a holiday entertainment for children but really a play for grown-up people", suggesting deeper social metaphors at work in Peter Pan. Barrie had a long string of successes on the stage after Peter Pan, many of which discuss social concerns, as Barrie continued to integrate his work and his beliefs. The Twelve Pound Look (1910) concerns a wife leaving her 'typical' husband once she can gain an independent income. Other plays, such as Mary Rose (1920) and Dear Brutus (1917), revisit the idea of the ageless child and parallel worlds. Barrie was involved in the 1909 and 1911 attempts to challenge the censorship of the theatre by the Lord Chamberlain, along with a number of other playwrights.[22] In 1911, Barrie developed the Peter Pan play into the novel Peter and Wendy. In April 1929, Barrie gave the copyright of the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, a leading children's hospital in London. The current status of the copyright is somewhat complex. His final play was The Boy David (1936), which dramatised the Biblical story of King Saul and the young David. Like the role of Peter Pan, that of David was played by a woman, Elisabeth Bergner, for whom Barrie wrote the play.[23] Social connections[edit] Barrie, c. 1895 Barrie moved in literary circles and had many famous friends in addition to his professional collaborators. Novelist George Meredith was an early social patron. He had a long correspondence with fellow Scot Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in Samoa at the time. Stevenson invited Barrie to visit him, but the two never met.[24][25] He was also friends with fellow Scots writer S. R. Crockett. George Bernard Shaw was his neighbour in London for several years, and once participated in a Western that Barrie scripted and filmed. H. G. Wells was a friend of many years, and tried to intervene when Barrie's marriage fell apart. Barrie met Thomas Hardy through Hugh Clifford while he was staying in London.[25] He was friends with Nobel prize winner John Galsworthy.[26] Barrie remained tied to his Scottish roots and visited his hometown of Kirriemuir regularly with his wards. When choosing his first personal secretary, Barrie chose E. V. Lucas's wife, Elizabeth Lucas, who had Scottish roots through her American parentage.[27] After Elizabeth Lucas moved to Paris, France, Barrie chose Cynthia Asquith as his personal secretary. After the First World War, Barrie sometimes stayed at Stanway House near the village of Stanway in Gloucestershire. He paid for the pavilion at Stanway cricket ground.[28] In 1887, he founded an amateur cricket team for friends of similarly limited playing ability, and named it the Allahakbarries under the mistaken belief that "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" in Arabic (rather than "God is great").[29] Some of the best known British authors from the era played on the team at various times, including H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, E. W. Hornung, A. E. W. Mason, Walter Raleigh, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, Owen Seaman (editor of Punch), Bernard Partridge, George Cecil Ives, George Llewelyn Davies (see below) and the son of Alfred Tennyson. In 1891, Barrie joined the newly formed Authors Cricket Club and also played for its cricket team, the Authors XI, alongside Doyle, Wodehouse and Milne. The Allahakbarries and the Authors XI continued to exist side by side until 1912.[9][30] Barrie befriended Africa explorer Joseph Thomson and Antarctica explorer Robert Falcon Scott.[31] He was godfather to Scott's son Peter,[32] and was one of the seven people to whom Scott wrote letters in the final hours of his life during his expedition to the South Pole, asking Barrie to take care of his wife Kathleen and son Peter. Barrie was so proud of the letter that he carried it around for the rest of his life.[33] In 1896, his agent Addison Bright persuaded him to meet with Broadway producer Charles Frohman, who became his financial backer and a close friend, as well.[34] Frohman was responsible for producing the debut of Peter Pan in both England and the US, as well as other productions of Barrie's plays. He famously declined a lifeboat seat when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. Actress Rita Jolivet stood with Frohman, George Vernon and Captain Alick Scott at the end of Lusitania's sinking, but she survived the sinking and recalled Frohman paraphrasing Peter Pan: 'Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.'[35] Barrie had himself sailed on one of the Lusitania's final Atlantic crossings in September 1914, during which rumours circulated amongst the passengers that the liner was to be transferred to the British Admiralty for troopship duties on arrival in New York.[36] His secretary from 1917, Cynthia Asquith, was the daughter-in-law of H. H. Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916.[37] In the 1930s, Barrie met and told stories to the young daughters of the Duke of York, the future Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.[37] After meeting him, the three-year-old Princess Margaret announced, "He is my greatest friend and I am his greatest friend".[25] Marriage[edit] Blue plaque on 100 Bayswater Road, London where Barrie lived and wrote Peter Pan Barrie became acquainted with actress Mary Ansell in 1891, when he asked his friend Jerome K. Jerome for a pretty actress to play a role in his play Walker, London. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894.[9] They married in Kirriemuir on 9 July 1894,[38] shortly after Barrie recovered, and Mary retired from the stage. The wedding was a small ceremony in his parents' home, in the Scottish tradition.[39] The relationship was reportedly unconsummated, and the couple had no children.[40] In 1895, the Barries bought a house on Gloucester Road, in South Kensington.[41] Barrie would take long walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, and in 1900 the couple moved into a house directly overlooking the gardens at 100 Bayswater Road. Mary had a flair for interior design and set about transforming the ground floor, creating two large reception rooms with painted panelling and adding fashionable features, such as a conservatory.[42] In the same year, Mary found Black Lake Cottage at Farnham in Surrey, which became the couple's "bolt hole" where Barrie could entertain his cricketing friends and the Llewelyn Davies family.[43] Beginning in mid-1908, Mary had an affair with Gilbert Cannan (who was twenty years younger than she[44] and an associate of Barrie in his anti-censorship activities), including a visit together to Black Lake Cottage, known only to the house staff. When Barrie learned of the affair in July 1909, he demanded that she end it, but she refused. To avoid the scandal of divorce, he offered a legal separation if she would agree not to see Cannan any more, but she still refused. Barrie sued for divorce on the grounds of infidelity; the divorce was granted in October 1909.[45][46] Knowing how painful the divorce was for him, some of Barrie's friends wrote to a number of newspaper editors asking them not to publish the story. In the event, only three newspapers did.[47][48] Barrie continued to support Mary financially even after she married Cannan, by giving her an annual allowance, which was handed over at a private dinner held on her and Barrie's wedding anniversary.[44] Llewelyn Davies family[edit] Jack Llewelyn Davies acting in Barrie's pirate adventure, The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island, 1901 The Llewelyn Davies family played an important part in Barrie's literary and personal life, consisting of Arthur (1863–1907), Sylvia (1866–1910) (daughter of George du Maurier),[49] and their five sons: George (1893–1915), John (Jack) (1894–1959), Peter (1897–1960), Michael (1900–1921) and Nicholas (Nico) (1903–1980). Barrie became acquainted with the family in 1897, meeting George and Jack (and baby Peter) with their nurse (nanny) Mary Hodgson in London's Kensington Gardens. He lived nearby and often walked his Saint Bernard dog Porthos in the park. He entertained the boys regularly with his ability to wiggle his ears and eyebrows, and with his stories.[50] He did not meet Sylvia until a chance encounter at a dinner party in December. She told Barrie that Peter had been named after the title character in her father's novel, Peter Ibbetson.[51] Michael Llewelyn Davies as Peter Pan, 1906. Photo was taken by Barrie at Cudlow House in Rustington, West Sussex Barrie became a regular visitor at the Davies household and a common companion to Sylvia and her boys, despite the fact that both he and she were married to other people.[6] In 1901, he invited the Davies family to Black Lake Cottage, where he produced an album of captioned photographs of the boys acting out a pirate adventure, entitled The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island. Barrie had two copies made, one of which he gave to Arthur, who misplaced it on a train.[52] The only surviving copy is held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.[53] The character of Peter Pan was invented to entertain George and Jack. Barrie would say, to amuse them, that their little brother Peter could fly. He claimed that babies were birds before they were born; parents put bars on nursery windows to keep the little ones from flying away. This grew into a tale of a baby boy who did fly away.[54] Barrie’s Saint Bernard dog Porthos in 1899 Arthur Llewelyn Davies died in 1907, and "Uncle Jim" became even more involved with the Davies family, providing financial support to them. (His income from Peter Pan and other works was easily adequate to provide for their living expenses and education.)[55] Following Sylvia's death in 1910, Barrie claimed that they had recently been engaged to be married.[56] Her will indicated nothing to that effect but specified her wish for "J. M. B." to be trustee and guardian to the boys, along with her mother Emma, her brother Guy du Maurier and Arthur's brother Compton. It expressed her confidence in Barrie as the boys' caretaker and her wish for "the boys to treat him (& their uncles) with absolute confidence & straightforwardness & to talk to him about everything."[57] When copying the will informally for Sylvia's family a few months later, Barrie inserted himself elsewhere: Sylvia had written that she would like Mary Hodgson, the boys' nurse, to continue taking care of them, and for "Jenny" (referring to Hodgson's sister) to come and help her; Barrie instead wrote, "Jimmy" (Sylvia's nickname for him).[58] Barrie and Hodgson did not get along well but served together as surrogate parents until the boys were grown.[59] Barrie also had friendships with other children, both before he met the Davies boys and after they had grown up, and there has since been unsubstantiated speculation that Barrie was a paedophile.[60][61] One source for the speculation is a scene in the novel The Little White Bird, in which the protagonist helps a small boy undress for bed, and at the boy's request they sleep in the same bed.[62] However, there is no evidence that Barrie had sexual contact with children, nor that he was suspected of it at the time. Nico, the youngest of the brothers, denied as an adult that Barrie ever behaved inappropriately. "I don't believe that Uncle Jim ever experienced what one might call 'a stirring in the undergrowth' for anyone—man, woman, or child", he stated.[63] "He was an innocent—which is why he could write Peter Pan."[64] His relationships with the surviving Davies boys continued well beyond their childhood and adolescence. The Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, erected secretly overnight for May Morning in 1912, was supposed to be modelled upon old photographs of Michael dressed as the character. However, the sculptor, Sir George Frampton, used a different child as a model, leaving Barrie disappointed with the result. "It doesn't show the devil in Peter", he said.[65] Barrie suffered bereavements with the boys, losing the two to whom he was closest in their early twenties. George was killed in action in 1915, in the First World War.[66] Michael, with whom Barrie corresponded daily while at boarding school and university, drowned in 1921, with his friend, Rupert Buxton,[67] at a known danger spot at Sandford Lock near Oxford, one month short of his 21st birthday.[68] Some years after Barrie's death, Peter compiled his Morgue from family letters and papers, interpolated with his own informed comments on his family and their relationship with Barrie. Peter died in 1960 by throwing himself in front of an Underground train at Sloane Square station. Death[edit] Gravestone of J. M. Barrie in Kirriemuir Cemetery Barrie died of pneumonia at a nursing home in Manchester Street, Marylebone on 19 June 1937.[69] He was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.[70] His birthplace at 9 Brechin Road is maintained as a museum by the National Trust for Scotland.[71] Barrie left the bulk of his estate to his secretary Lady Cynthia Asquith, but excluding the rights to all Peter Pan works (which included The Little White Bird, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up and the novel Peter and Wendy), whose copyright he had previously given to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The surviving Llewelyn Davies boys received legacies, and he made provisions for his former wife Mary Ansell to receive an annuity during her lifetime.[6] His will also left £500 to the Bower Free Church in Caithness to mark the memory of Rev James Winter who was to have married Barrie's sister in June 1892 but was killed in a fall from his horse in May 1892. Barrie had several connections to the Free Church of Scotland, including his maternal uncle Rev David Ogilvy (1822–1904), who was minister of Dalziel Church in Motherwell.[72] James and his brother William Winter (also a Free Church minister) were both born in Cortachy the sons of Rev William Winter. Cortachy is just west of Kirriemuir and the Winters seem closely connected to the Ogilvy family.[73] Biographies[edit] Books[edit] Hammerton, J. A. (1929). Barrie: the Story of a Genius. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Darlington, W. A. (1938). J. M. Barrie. London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son. ISBN 0-8383-1768-5. Chalmers, Patrick (1938). The Barrie Inspiration. Peter Davies. ISBN 978-1-4733-1220-3. Mackail, Denis (1941). Barrie: The Story of J. M. B. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-8369-6734-8. Dunbar, Janet (1970). J. M. Barrie: The Man Behind the Image. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211384-8. Birkin, Andrew (2003). J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan (Revised ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09822-8. Chaney, Lisa (2006). Hide-and-Seek with Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie. Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-945323-9. Dudgeon, Piers (2009). Captivated: J. M. Barrie, the du Mauriers & the Dark Side of Neverland. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-09-952045-0. Telfer, Kevin (2010). Peter Pan's First XI: The Extraordinary Story of J. M. Barrie's Cricket Team. Sceptre. ISBN 978-0-340-91945-3. Ridley, Rosalind (2016). Peter Pan and the Mind of J. M. Barrie: An Exploration of Cognition and Consciousness. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-9107-3. Dudgeon, Piers (2016). J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Inspired Him. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-1-250-08779-9. Journal[edit] Stokes, Sewell (November 1941). "James M Barrie". New York Theatre Arts Inc. 25 (11): 845–848. Film, television and stage[edit] The Lost Boys (1978). Ian Holm (as J.M. Barrie), Andrew Birkin (writer). BBC. The Man Who Was Peter Pan (1998) is a play by Allan Knee, a semi-biographical version of Barrie's life and relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family. Finding Neverland (2004) with Johnny Depp (as J.M. Barrie), Kate Winslet (Sylvia Llewelyn Davies), Marc Forster (director), based on Allan Knee's play. The Boy James (2012) by Alexander Wright (of Belt Up Theatre), is a one act play inspired by his life and work. Finding Neverland (2012) by Diane Paulus, is a musical about the creation of Peter Pan based on the film and starring Matthew Morrison and Laura Michelle Kelly. Honours[edit] Personal[edit] Barrie was appointed a baronet by King George V in 1913. He was made a member of the Order of Merit in 1922. In 1919, he was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews for a three-year term. In 1922, he delivered his celebrated Rectorial Address on Courage at St Andrews, and visited University College Dundee with Earl Haig to open its new playing fields, with Barrie bowling a few balls to Haig.[74] He served as Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh from 1930 to 1937.[75] Barrie was the only person to receive the Freedom of Kirriemuir in a ceremony on 7 June 1930 in Kirriemuir Town Hall where he was presented with a silver casket containing the freedom scroll. The casket was made by silversmiths Brook & Son in Edinburgh in 1929 and is decorated with images of sites in Kirriemuir which held significant memories for Barrie: Kirriemuir Townhouse, Strathview, Window in Thrums, the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and the Barrie Cricket Pavilion. The casket is on display in the Kirrimuir Gateway to the Glens Museum in the Kirriemuir Town House.[76] Coat of arms of J. M. Barrie Crest An open book amid reeds all Proper. Escutcheon Barry of six Argent and Gules in chief a lion passant guardant counterchanged and issuant from the base reeds Proper. Motto Amour De La Bonte (Love of Goodness)[77] Legacy[edit] The Sir James Barrie Primary School in Wandsworth, South West London is named after him. The Barrie School in Silver Spring, Maryland, is also named in his honour.[78] Tributes[edit] On 9 May 2010, Google celebrated J.M. Barrie's 150th Birthday with a doodle.[79][80] Bibliography[edit] Peter Pan[edit] The Little White Bird, or Adventures in Kensington Gardens (1902) Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (staged 1904, published 1928) Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought (written – 1908, published 1957) Peter and Wendy (novel) (1911) Other works by year[edit] Better Dead (1887) Auld Licht Idylls (1888) When a Man's Single (1888) A Window in Thrums (1889) My Lady Nicotine (1890), republished in 1926 with the subtitle A Study in Smoke The Little Minister (1891) Richard Savage (1891) Ibsen's Ghost (Toole Up-to-Date) (1891) Walker, London (1892) Jane Annie (opera), music by Ernest Ford, libretto by Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle (1893) A Powerful Drug and Other Stories (1893) A Tillyloss Scandal (1893) Two of Them (1893) A Lady's Shoe[81] (1893) (two short stories: A Lady's Shoe, The Inconsiderate Waiter) Life in a Country Manse (1894) Scotland's Lament: A Poem on the Death of Robert Louis Stevenson (1895) Sentimental Tommy, The Story of His Boyhood (1896) Margaret Ogilvy (1896) Jess[82] (1898) Tommy and Grizel (1900) The Wedding Guest (1900) The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island (1901) Quality Street (play) (1901) The Admirable Crichton (play) (1902) Little Mary (play) (1903) Alice Sit-by-the-Fire (play) (1905) Pantaloon (1905) What Every Woman Knows (play) (1908) Half an Hour[83] (play) (1913) Half Hours[84] (1914) includes: Pantaloon The Twelve-Pound Look (1911)[85] Rosalind The Will The Legend of Leonora (1914) Der Tag[86] (The Tragic Man) (Short play) (1914) The New Word[87] (play) (1915) Charles Frohman: A Tribute (1915) Rosy Rapture[88] (play) (1915) A Kiss for Cinderella (play) (1916) Real Thing at Last[89] (play) (1916) Shakespeare's Legacy[90] (play) (1916) A Strange Play[91] (play) (1917) Charwomen and the War or The Old Lady Shows her Medals[92] (play) (1917) Dear Brutus[93] (1917) (play) La Politesse[94] (play) (1918) Echoes of the War (1918) Four plays, includes: The New Word The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (basis for the movie Seven Days Leave (1930), starring Gary Cooper) A Well-Remembered Voice[95] Barbara's Wedding Mary Rose (1920) Courage, the Rectorial Address delivered at St. Andrews University (1922) The Author (1925) Biographical Introduction to Scott's Last Expedition (preface) (orig. pub. 1913, introduction included in 1925 edition only) Cricket (1926) Shall We Join the Ladies?[96] (1928) includes: Shall We Join the Ladies? Half an Hour Seven Women Old Friends The Greenwood Hat (1930) Farewell Miss Julie Logan (1932) The Boy David (1936) M'Connachie and J. M. B. (1938) story treatment for film As You Like It (1936) The Reconstruction of the Crime (play), co-written with E.V. Lucas (undated, first published 2017) Stories by English Authors: London (selected by Scribners, as contributor) Stories by English Authors: Scotland (selected by Scribners, as contributor) preface to The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan by Daisy Ashford The Earliest Plays of J. M. Barrie: Bandelero the Bandit, Bohemia and Caught Napping, edited by R.D.S. Jack (2014) References[edit] ^ "History of the name Wendy". Wendy.com. Archived from the original on 18 March 2009. Retrieved 22 July 2009. ^ "No. 28733". The London Gazette. 1 July 1913. p. 4638. ^ "No. 32563". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1921. p. 10713. ^ Adams, James Eli (2012). A History of Victorian Literature. John Wiley & Sons. p. 359. ^ Moffat, Alistair (2012). "Chapter 9". Britain's Last Frontier: A Journey Along the Highland Line. Birlinn. p. 1. ^ a b c Birkin, Andrew: J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys, Constable, 1979; revised edition, Yale University Press, 2003 ^ Birkin (2003), p. 3. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 4–5. ^ a b c d e Chaney, Lisa. Hide-and-Seek with Angels – A Life of J. M. Barrie, London: Arrow Books, 2005 ^ McConnachie and J. M. B.: Speeches of J. M. Barrie, Peter Davies, 1938 ^ "Peter Pan project off the ground". BBC News Scotland. 6 August 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2009. ^ a b c White (1994), p. 26. ^ J. M. Barrie. "A Window in Thrums". Project Gutenberg. ^ a b c d White (1994), p. 27. ^ "Kailyard School". www.litencyc.com. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 16. ^ Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, p.427. ^ Dominic Shellard, et al. The Lord Chamberlain Regrets, 2004, British Library, pp. 77–79. ^ "Tales from the cabbage patch". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 August 2019. ^ Cox, Michael (2005). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 428. ISBN 978-0198610540. ^ "Mr Barrie's New Play. A Christmas Fairy Tale". The Glasgow Herald. 28 December 1904. p. 7. Retrieved 26 May 2018. ^ Postlewait, Thomas (2004). "The London Stage, 1895–1918". The Cambridge History of British Theatre. p. 38. ISBN 978-0521651325. ^ Law, Jonathan, ed. (2013). The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre. A & C Black. pp. 44–45. ISBN 978-1408131480. ^ Shaw, Michael (ed.) (2020), A Friendship in Letters: Robert Louis Stevenson & J.M. Barrie, Sandstone Press, Inverness ISBN 978-1-913207-02-1 ^ a b c Miller, Laura (14 December 2003). "THE LAST WORD; The Lost Boy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2019. ^ Barker, Dudley (1963). A Man of Principle. London: House and Maxwell. p. 179. ISBN 1379084962. ^ Sass, Sara (2021). There Are Some Secrets. Atmosphere Press. ISBN 9781639880102. ^ Page, William (1965). The Victoria History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 6. A. Constable, limited. p. 226. ^ Tim Masters (7 May 2010). "How Peter Pan's author invented celebrity cricket". BBC News. Retrieved 2 August 2019. ^ Parkinson, Justin (26 July 2014). "Authors and actors revive cricket rivalry". BBC News Magazine. Retrieved 10 April 2019. ^ Smith, Mark (2 September 2010). "Two friends who took the world by storm". The Scotsman. Retrieved 2 September 2010. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 209. ^ White (1994), p. 36. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 38. ^ Ellis, Frederick D., The Tragedy of the Lusitania (National Publishing Company, 1915), pp. 38–39; Preston, Diana, Lusitania, An Epic Tragedy (Walker & Company, 2002), p. 204; New York Tribune, "Frohman Calm; Not Concerned About Death, Welcomed It as Beautiful Adventure, He Told Friends at End", 11 May 1915, p. 3; Marcosson, Isaac Frederick, & Daniel Frohman, Charles Frohman: Manager and Man (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1916), p. 387; Frohman, Charles, The Lusitania Resource ^ Earlier Voyages, Gare Maritime ^ a b "Captain Scott and J M Barrie: an unlikely friendship". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2015. ^ "Hall of Fame A–Z: J M Barrie (1860–1937)". National Records of Scotland. 31 May 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2018. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 28–29. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 179–180. ^ Stogdon, Catalina (17 May 2006). "Round the houses: Peter Pan". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 14 May 2015. ^ Law, Cally (10 May 2015). "Return to Neverland". The Sunday Times. Times Newspapers Limited. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 14 May 2015. ^ "JM Barrie". Surrey Monocle. 10 January 2007. Archived from the original on 7 March 2009. Retrieved 22 July 2009. Retrieved from Internet Archive 27 December 2013. ^ a b Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey, p. 287 ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 175–176, 181. ^ "J.M. Barrie Seeks Divorce from Wife". New York Times. 7 October 1909. Retrieved 17 April 2010. The name of James M. Barrie, the playwright, figures as a petitioner in the list of divorce cases set down for trial at the next session of the law courts here. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 181. ^ White (1994), p. 34. ^ married the 3Q of 1892 in Hampstead, London: GROMI: vol. 1a, p. 1331 ^ Birkin (2003), p. 41. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 44–45. ^ "Andrew Birkin on J. M. Barrie". Jmbarrie.co.uk. 5 April 1960. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 8 May 2010. Retrieved from Internet Archive 27 December 2013. ^ J. M. Barrie's Boy Castaways Archived 15 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University ^ White (1994), p. 29. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 154. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 91–92. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 188–189. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 194. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 196, 271. ^ Picardie, Justine (13 July 2008). "How bad was J. M. Barrie?". Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 22 July 2009. ^ Parker, James (22 February 2004). "The real Peter Pan – The Boston Globe". Boston.com. Retrieved 22 July 2009. ^ White, Donna R. (1994). Zaidman, Laura M. (ed.). British Children's Writers, 1880–1914. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research. ISBN 978-0810355552. ^ Birkin (2003), Introduction to the Yale Edition. ^ Birkin (2003), p. 130. ^ Birkin (2003), pp. 142, 202. ^ "Casualty Details: Davies, George Llewelyn". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2016. ^ "Audio". Jmbarrie.co.uk. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 8 May 2010. ^ Birkin (2003), Introduction to the Yale Edition, pp. 291–293. ^ "Death of Sir J. M. Barrie. King Grieved at Loss of an Old Friend. Funeral on Thursday at Kirriemuil. "The End Was Peaceful"". The Glasgow Herald. 21 June 1937. p. 13. Retrieved 14 April 2018. ^ "Funeral of Sir J. M. Barrie. Thousands Assemble at Graveside "Thrums" pays its Last Respects. Distinguished Mourners and Many Tributes". The Glasgow Herald. 25 June 1937. p. 14. Retrieved 14 April 2018. ^ "National Trust for Scotland". National Trust for Scotland. Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church; James Winter ^ Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church; William Winter ^ Baxter, Kenneth (29 March 2011). "J M Barrie and Rudyard Kipling". Archives Records and Artefacts at the University of Dundee. University of Dundee. Retrieved 16 September 2016. ^ "New Chancellor. Installation of James Barrie". The Glasgow Herald. 24 October 1930. p. 13. Retrieved 20 February 2018. ^ "JM Barrie silver casket on show in Kirriemuir". The Scotsman. 12 September 2013. Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. ^ Burke's Peerage. 1915. p. 193. ^ Carnival PR and Design. "The Barrie School". Barrie.org. Retrieved 22 July 2009. ^ J.M. Barrie's 150th Birthday, retrieved 7 May 2023 ^ Desk, OV Digital (7 May 2023). "9 May: Remembering J.M. Barrie on Birthday". Observer Voice. Retrieved 7 May 2023. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help) ^ "A Lady's Shoe". www.fadedpage.com. ^ "Jess". www.fadedpage.com. ^ "Half an Hour". www.fadedpage.com. ^ "Half Hours". www.fadedpage.com. ^ Vagg, Stephen (30 January 2022). "Forgotten Australian Television Plays: The Twelve Pound Look". Filmink. Retrieved 13 August 2024. ^ "Der Tag". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "The New Word". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Rosy Rapture". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Real Thing at Last". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Shakespeare's Legacy". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "A Strange play". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Charwomen and the War or The Old Lady Shows Her Medals". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Dear Brutus". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "La Politesse". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "A Well-Remembered Voice". Retrieved 11 March 2023. ^ "Shall We Join the Ladies?". www.fadedpage.com. Further reading[edit] Craig, Cairns (1980), Fearful Selves: Character, Community and the Scottish Imagination, in Cencrastus No. 4, Winter 11980-81, pp. 29 – 32, ISSN 0264-0856 Shaw, Michael (ed.) (2020), A Friendship in Letters: Robert Louis Stevenson & J.M. Barrie, Sandstone Press, Inverness ISBN 978-1-913207-02-1 Archival collections[edit] J. M. Barrie Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library J. M. Barrie Collection at the Harry Ransom Center External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Barrie. Wikiquote has quotations related to J. M. Barrie. Wikisource has original works by or about:J. M. Barrie Works by James Matthew Barrie at Faded Page (Canada) Works by or about J. M. Barrie at the Internet Archive Works by J. M. Barrie at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by J. M. Barrie at Project Gutenberg Works by J. M. Barrie in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Peter Pan & Wendy Darling. 11 October 1911. (Peter Pan complete) J.M Barrie & 1909 Theatre Censorship Committee – UK Parliament Living Heritage JMbarrie.co.uk site authorised by Great Ormond Street Hospital, edited by Andrew Birkin, includes database of original photographs, letters, documents and audio interviews conducted by Birkin in 1975–76 Great Ormond Street Hospital's copyright claim Archived 11 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine "Why J. M. Barrie Created Peter Pan", Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 22 November 2004 "J. M. Barrie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" Archived 2 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine at The Chronicles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (siracd.com) Audio recording of Barrie's short play The Will—Recording by professional actors at LostPlays.com Film of Barrie from 1922 as Rector of St Andrews with Ellen Terry J. M. Barrie at IMDb J. M. Barrie at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Plays by J. M. Barrie at the Great War Theatre website Academic offices Preceded byThe Earl Haig Rector of the University of St Andrews 1919–1922 Succeeded byRudyard Kipling Preceded byThe Earl of Balfour Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh 1930–1937 Succeeded byThe Lord Tweedsmuir Baronetage of the United Kingdom New creation Baronet(of Adelphi Terrace) 1913–1937 Extinct vteJ. M. Barrie's Peter PanUniverseCharacters Peter Pan Wendy Darling Captain Hook Mr. Smee Tinker Bell Disney version Tiger Lily Lost Boys Biographies The Lost Boys Finding Neverland Related Neverland Llewelyn Davies boys George Jack Peter Michael Peter Pan syndrome puer aeternus Peter Pan copyright Disney franchise Disney Fairies Tinker Bell cast Peter Pan (London statue) Peter Pan (Columbus, Ohio, statue) MediaLiteraryadaptationsOfficial books/plays The Little White Bird Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens Peter and Wendy (play, book) Peter Pan in Scarlet Starcatchers books Peter and the Starcatchers Peter and the Shadow Thieves Peter and the Secret of Rundoon Peter and the Sword of Mercy The Bridge to Never Land Never Land Books FilmadaptationsPeter Pan films Peter Pan (1924) Peter Pan (1988) Hook Neverland Peter Pan (2003) Pan Come Away Wendy The Lost Girls The Twisted Childhood Universe Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025) Disney's Peter Pan films Peter Pan (1953) Return to Never Land Peter Pan & Wendy Tinker Bell films Tinker Bell Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue Pixie Hollow Games Secret of the Wings Pixie Hollow Bake Off The Pirate Fairy Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast OtheradaptationsTelevision 1954 musical 1976 musical 1989 Animated Series Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates Jake and the Never Land Pirates Once Upon a Time Neverland Peter Pan Live! The New Adventures of Peter Pan Peter and Wendy Stage 1950 musical 1954 musical Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure Peter and the Starcatcher Peter Pan 360 Peter and Alice Peter Pan Goes Wrong Wendy & Peter Pan Disney's Peter Pan Jr. Finding Neverland (musical) Video games Peter Pan and the Pirates Hook Peter Pan: Adventures in Never Land Prose The Child Thief Graphic novels Peter Pank Lost Girls Marvel Fairy Tales Cheshire Crossing MusicAlbums Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust Songs "Lost Boy" (Ruth B song) Somewhere in Neverland "Peter Pan" (Kelsea Ballerini song) Attractions Disney on Ice Fantasmic! Peter Pan's Flight (ride) Pixie Hollow Allusions Never Never Land Category vteJ. M. Barrie's The Admirable CrichtonFilm adaptations The Admirable Crichton (1918) Male and Female (1919) Charlemagne (1933) We're Not Dressing (1934) The Admirable Crichton (1957) TV adaptations The Admirable Crichton (1950) The Admirable Crichton (1968) Musical adaptations Our Man Crichton (1964) vteRectors of the University of St AndrewsUniversity of St Andrews Sir Ralph Abercromby Anstruther, 4th Baronet Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet John Stuart Mill James Anthony Froude Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves Arthur Penrhyn Stanley Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne Sir Theodore Martin Donald Mackay, 11th Lord Reay Arthur Balfour Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute James Stuart Andrew Carnegie John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery John Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig Sir J. M. Barrie Rudyard Kipling Fridtjof Nansen Wilfred Grenfell Jan Smuts Guglielmo Marconi Robert MacGregor Mitchell, Lord MacGregor Mitchell Sir David Munro Sir George Cunningham David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir Robert Boothby, Baron Boothby C. P. Snow Sir John Rothenstein Learie Constantine John Cleese Alan Coren Frank Muir Tim Brooke-Taylor Katharine Whitehorn Stanley Adams Nicholas Parsons Nicky Campbell Donald Findlay Andrew Neil Sir Clement Freud Simon Pepper Kevin Dunion Alistair Moffat Catherine Stihler Srđa Popović Leyla Hussein Stella Maris Authority control databases InternationalISNIVIAFFASTWorldCatNationalGermanyUnited StatesFranceBnF dataJapanItalyAustraliaCzech RepublicRussia2SpainPortugalNetherlandsNorwayLatviaCroatiaChileGreece2KoreaSwedenPolandVaticanIsraelFinlandCataloniaBelgiumAcademicsCiNiiArtistsULANMusicBrainzRKD ArtistsPhotographers' IdentitiesDiscography of American Historical RecordingsPeopleTroveDeutsche BiographieOtherIdRefSNAC
One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed, while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up. Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful.
But you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree. Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments or too few; but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this, as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect condition.
After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour, which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and then they put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table; as soon as they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus there was more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was in almost any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across this Wendy stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended her washing. The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at 6.30, when it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys except Michael slept in it, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule against turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at once. Michael should have used it also; but Wendy would have a baby, and he was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and the long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.
It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one recess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the home by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always kept drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could have had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined. The couch, as she always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and she varied the bedspreads according to what fruit-blossom was in season. Her mirror was a Puss-in-boots, of which there are now only three, unchipped, known to the fairy dealers; the wash-stand was Pie-crust and reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and the carpet and rugs of the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin. There was a chandelier from Tiddly winks for the look of the thing, but of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the appearance of a nose permanently turned up.
I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those rampagious boys of hers gave her so much to do. Really there were whole weeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never above ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot. Their chief food was roasted breadfruit, yams, cocoa-nuts, baked pig, mammee-apples, tappa rolls and bananas, washed down with calabashes of poe-poe; but you never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal or just a make-believe, it all depended upon Peter's whim. He could eat, really eat, if it was part of a game, but he could not stodge just to feel stodgy, which is what most children like better than anything else; the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe was so real to him that during a meal of it you could see him getting rounder. Of course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead, and if you could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree he let you stodge.
Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on their knees.
When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, 'Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied.'
You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere. As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother. These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school. The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table, writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions-'What was the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible.' '(A) Write an essay of not less than 40 words on How I spent my last Holidays, or The Caracters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of these to be attempted.' Or '(1) Describe Mother's laugh; (2) Describe Father's laugh; (3) Describe Mother's Party Dress; (4) Describe the Kennel and its Inmate.'
They were just everyday questions like these,and when you could not answer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous, and he really came out last: a melancholy thing.
Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could neither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that sort of thing.
Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but about this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it, which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games. It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of thing John and Michael had been doing all their lives: sitting on stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for walks and coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see Peter doing nothing on a stool was a great sight; he could not help looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic thing to do. He boasted that he had gone a walk for the good of his health. For several suns these were the most novel of all adventures to him; and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also; otherwise he would have treated them severely.
He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went out you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great deal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came home with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed it in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never quite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she knew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still more that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as large as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary, and the most we can do is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and especially interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way and sometimes that, he called out, 'I'm redskin to-day; what are you, Tootles?' And Tootles answered, 'Redskin; what are you, Nibs?' and Nibs said,'Redskin; what are you, Twin?' and so on; and they were all redskin; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real redskins, fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that once, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever.
The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was-but we have not decided yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one would be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground, when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out like corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally.
Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might eat it and perish; and how they placed it in one cunning spot after another; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and was used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.
Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly of the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty story, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be; but if we tell it we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would of course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter adventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and Wendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him on the ground with an arrow and defied them to cross it; and though he waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly from trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge.
I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick to the lagoon.

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Word Lists:

Stodgy : dull and uninspired

Lagoon : a stretch of salt water separated from the sea by a low sandbank or coral reef.

Reversible : able to be turned the other way around

Sardine : a young pilchard or other young or small herring-like fish.

Upshot : the final or eventual outcome or conclusion of a discussion, action, or series of events

Yam : the edible starchy tuber of a climbing plant that is widely grown in tropical and subtropical countries.

Gulch : a narrow and steep-sided ravine marking the course of a fast stream.

Lukewarm : (of liquid or food that should be hot) only moderately warm; tepid

Adventure : an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity

Chandelier : a decorative hanging light with branches for several light bulbs or candles.

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Additional Information:

Rating: Words in the Passage: 2339 Unique Words: 748 Sentences: 85
Noun: 468 Conjunction: 267 Adverb: 207 Interjection: 4
Adjective: 135 Pronoun: 235 Verb: 452 Preposition: 261
Letter Count: 9,726 Sentiment: Positive Tone: Neutral Difficult Words: 375
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