Neverland
J.M. Barrie, the du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan
Piers Dudgeon
Contents
List of Illustrations
Family Tree
Author’s Note
Part I: 1945–1960: The Lost Boys and Daphne
Chapter One: Peter’s suicide: a case to answer
Chapter Two: What is the secret?
Part II: 1789–1862: Kicky and Barrie: learning to fly
Chapter One: Du Maurier dreamers
Chapter Two: Peak experience
Chapter Three: The boy who hated mothers
Chapter Four: Nervous breakdown
Part III: 1885–1894: Kicky, Barrie and Svengali: the secret
Chapter One: Impotent and ambitious
Chapter Two: Gateway to Neverland
Chapter Three: Purloining the key
Chapter Four: The corruption of Neverland
Part IV: 1894–1910: Sylvia, the Lost Boys and Uncle Jim: the Peter Pan Inheritance
Chapter One: Slipping into madness
Chapter Two: Predator and victim
Chapter Three: Philanderings in the park
Chapter Four: The boy in the box
Chapter Five: Flying Uncle Jim to Neverland
Chapter Six: Peter Pan, a demon boy
Chapter Seven: Sylvia’s Will
Part V: 1910–1921: Michael, Daphne and Uncle Jim: ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’
Chapter One: Looking for Michael
Chapter Two: Daphne’s initiation
Chapter Three: Michael’s suicide
Part VI: 1921–1989: Uncle Jim and Daphne: the Rebecca Inheritance
Chapter One: Rebecca, a demon boy
Chapter Two: Breakdown and suicide
Chapter Three: No escape
Image Gallery
Appendix: On Women in Love
Bibliography
Notes
Acknowledgements and Sources
Index
List of Illustrations
In the text
‘The child’s map of Kensington Gardens.’ Drawn by H. J. Ford, 1902
Kicky and Felix Moscheles. Sketch by George du Maurier
A mesmeric séance in Mrs L’s back parlour, 1858. Sketch by George du Maurier
The du Maurier children playing trains. Drawing by George du Maurier for Punch, 1875
Svengali. Illustration for Trilby by George du Maurier
‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’ Illustration for Peter Pan by F. D. Bedford
‘A strange appearance.’ Peter Pan dressed in leaves, illustration by Mabel Lucy Attwell
First section of plates
George du Maurier (Kicky) as a young art student in Paris. Self-portrait in oils, 1856 or 1857. Courtesy of Christian Browning
‘Coffee and Brassin in Bobtail’s Rooms’. Student life in Antwerp. Sketch by George du Maurier, 1858. In Bohemia with George du Maurier by Felix Moscheles (1896) ‘The Midnight Presence of the Uncanny’. George du Maurier and Felix Moscheles playing games of hypnotism. Sketch by George du Maurier. In Bohemia with George du Maurier by Felix Moscheles (1896)
George goes hunting for memories in the dead forests of his mind’. Illustrated letter from George du Maurier to Carry. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
‘Moscheles, or Mephistopheles? which’. Cartoon of Felix Moscheles as a devilish hypnotist. Sketch by George du Maurier. In Bohemia with George du Maurier by Felix Moscheles (1896)
George du Maurier and his wife Emma, with their daughter May, photographed in September 1874 by Julia Margaret Cameron. Royal Photographic Society Collection/at the NMeM/SSPL
George du Maurier in London, 1880s. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Henry James. © Getty Images
Sketch by George du Maurier of his daughter, Sylvia. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Dolly with her parents Hubert and Maude Parry. By kind permission of Laura Ponsonby and Kate Russell
Sylvia du Maurier. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Arthur Llewelyn Davies. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Sylvia with George, the eldest of her five sons. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Jamie Barrie, when a student at Edinburgh University, 1882. Courtesy of Andrew Birkin
Arthur Conan Doyle. Photo by Herbert Barraud/National Portrait Gallery
Barrie’s spinster sister, Jane Ann, and his redoubtable mother, Margaret Ogilvy.
J. M. Barrie by Janet Dunbar (1970)
Jim Barrie with his St Bernard dog, Porthos. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Mary Ansell, Barrie’s actress wife. Photograph by J.M. Barrie. The Walter Beinecke Jnr Collection, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Nanny to Sylvia’s five boys. Photograph of Mary Hodgson by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Second section of plates
Sylvia with her eldest son, George. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Sylvia with her third son, Peter. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, by kind permission of Laura Ponsonby and Kate Russell
Black Lake Cottage, Mary Barrie’s holiday house, where Jim Barrie encouraged the Llewelyn Davies boys to play fantasy games of redskins and pirates. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
We set out to be wrecked.’ George, Jack and Peter at Black Lake Cottage. Photograph by J.M. Barrie. The Walter Beinecke Jnr Collection, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
J. M. Barrie drawing further and further into the wood. Courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
No. 4 boy. Photograph of Michael Llewelyn Davies, courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Michael Llewelyn Davies. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
George Llewelyn Davies. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
J.M. Barrie in 1904, at the time that Peter Pan was first staged. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Sylvia, after her husband, Arthur Llewelyn Davies, died aged 44. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Sylvia, in her final illness, also aged 44. Photograph by J.M. Barrie, courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Sylvia’s Will. Courtesy of Andrew Birkin and The Walter Beinecke Jnr Collection, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
The Llewelyn Davies boys fly fishing. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Barrie in his penthouse flat at Adelphi Terrace House. J. M. Barrie by Janet Dunbar (1970)
Gerald du Maurier. It’s Only the Sister by Angela du Maurier (1951)
Gerald’s wife, Muriel du Maurier. It’s Only the Sister by Angela du Maurier (1951)
Captain Scott. © Getty Images
Lady Cynthia Asquith. J. M. Barrie by Janet Dunbar (1970)
Third section of plates
Daphne du Maurier as a small child. Courtesy of Christian Browning
Drawing of the artists’ model, Trilby. Illustration by George du Maurier for his novel, Trilby (1894)
Daphne with Trilby hair-cut. Co
urtesy of Christian Browning
Daphne dressed like Marty, character from George du Maurier’s novel, The Martian. Courtesy of Christian Browning
George, Jack and Peter Llewelyn Davies. J. M. Barrie by Janet Dunbar (1970)
Angela, Jeanne and Daphne du Maurier with their mother. Courtesy of Christian Browning
Michael at Oxford. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Nico at Eton. J. M. Barrie by Janet Dunbar (1970)
Michael and Nico with Uncle Jim on holiday in Scotland. Photograph by courtesy of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Robert Boothby with Michael and friends, at Oxford. Photograph by courtesy of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Sandford Pool, where Michael drowned. Author
Jim in 1920, before Michael’s death. J. M. Barrie by W. A. Darlington (1938)
Jim, in trilby, after Michael’s death. By courtesy of the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter
Jim in 1930. Photograph by courtesy of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London
Daphne with her father, Gerald, in 1925. She referred to her relationship with him as her ‘Daddy complex’. Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, London
Daphne rowing to Ferryside. Courtesy of Christian Browning
Daphne’s husband, Frederick Browning. Courtesy of Christian Browning
Daphne, in 1932, photographed by Compton Collier. Courtesy of Christian Browning
Daphne dreaming in her ‘writing hut’ at Menabilly. Photograph by Tom BlaulCamera Press
Daphne in the Aldwych Theatre with Gertrude Lawrence, 1948. Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, London
Daphne in old age, photographed by Bob Collins. National Portrait Gallery
Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright in text quotations and illustrations, but any inadvertent mistakes or omissions may be corrected in future editions.
Author’s Note
I met Daphne du Maurier in 1987, two years before she died. We met at Kilmarth, the dower house on the Menabilly Estate, to discuss a book called Enchanted Cornwall, which I was to edit and co-publish, and which first led me to a close scrutiny of her autobiographical writings, her Cornish novels, and the places that had inspired them.
In 1915, D. H. Lawrence had been so inspired by Cornwall that he wrote: ‘It seems as if the truth were still living here, growing like the sea holly, and love like Tristan, and old reality like King Arthur . . .’ The effect of Cornwall on Daphne was similar. In her novel Castle Dor the Tristan myth erupts from the Cornish furze into the present day, and her communication with the spirit of place in other books is such that by the end of my research into Enchanted Cornwall I felt I really understood something about Daphne’s imagination and empathised with it, a feeling many get from reading her novels.
Even then, however, there were intimations that her acute sense of place was not the whole story. In press clippings and documentaries she spoke of a life of pretence, of immersing herself in the make-believe of taking on the role of an imagined other.
Twenty years later I was the guest of Daphne’s son, Christian Browning, this time at Ferryside, where Daphne wrote her first novel. During our conversation he let slip that before her death his mother had placed a fifty-year moratorium on publication of her adolescent diaries, which I knew to have been described by a friend of hers as ‘dangerous, indiscreet and stupid’.
What, I wondered as I made my way home to Yorkshire, had Daphne been so desperate to keep under wraps until 2039?
After Daphne’s death, letters which suggested she had had lesbian affairs were released. Other letters interested me more, in particular one that she wrote to Maureen Baker-Munton on 4 July 1957, in which she revealed that she drew on real people and relationships in her novels and short stories. I was also struck by letters written to Oriel Malet over three decades, in which Daphne said she drew on fantasy persona and applied them to her own life.
In 1964 she wrote: ‘When I was younger I always had to have some sort of Peg to hang things on, whether it was a character in a book developing from a real person, or a real person being pegged from a character (very muddling!).’
She claimed to have lived like that ‘for most of my life’. She habitually pretended to be another person, an alter ego. Equally, she invested others with imaginary qualities irrespective of whether they actually had them. Sometimes it worked because people do often become what you want them to be; at other times, the fantasy could ‘explode like bubbles and vanish, or else turn catastrophic’.
Her supposedly lesbian relationship with Gertrude Lawrence, which Daphne described as purely imaginary, was a case in point. When Gertie died she didn’t miss the woman at all. She had never known her, she said, except ‘in character’. The qualities that Daphne had found in Gertie were an expression of her own needs and desires, and had not truly, in an objective sense, existed. Living like this reduced love to an illusion, as Daphne realised, but she revelled in the insight, not seeing it as the sad result of her way of life.
Living like this had empowered her since her teenage years. And in 1937, at thirty, she looked into the mirror of imagination and discovered Rebecca, a whole person with no insufficiency, someone whom she had always wanted to be. ‘No one got the better of Rebecca. She did what she liked, she lived as she liked.’
As she admitted to Oriel, Daphne became her most famous creation.
The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote that this is how we all behave. We catch sight of ourselves in the mirror and mistake an image of the whole person, in psychoanalytical terms the ideal ego, for our true self.
Whether or not this is so, Daphne did it and made a terrible mess of her personal life, but wrote some of her best novels out of the mess she created. She could never write anything unless there was a personal emotional trigger, and her adopted persona ensured that there was emotional devastation everywhere.
Eventually her fantasy life led to a nervous breakdown in 1957. Things had been under pressure since the 1940s, when she began pegging fictional characters on real people and seeking to write them out of her life by killing them off in a story.
Oriel Malet was deeply concerned. It was clear that Daphne was a victim of her imagination, but Oriel suspected more. She became convinced that something had occurred in Daphne’s childhood to seal her in to this way of thinking, to cut her off from reality and to give her this dark fantastic view of life. She begged Daphne to share it with her, but Daphne refused.
Towards the end, Oriel watched with dismay as her friend’s health deteriorated. She became convinced that suppression of this ‘something’, which had to do with Daphne’s imaginative life, lay behind the mental and emotional agonies she suffered, which included a suicide attempt.
I began to look into Daphne’s childhood, and came at once to J. M. Barrie, or Uncle Jim as she called him. I learned that he was part of the family even before she was born; that her father Gerald found fame in eight of Barrie’s plays; that in the first play in which Barrie cast Gerald he placed him opposite Daphne’s future mother in an amorous situation on stage that resulted in their marriage; that from as early as Daphne could remember he was in the habit of playing with her and her two sisters; and that he was so interested in Daphne, in particular in the special relationship that developed between her and her father, that when she was ten he wrote a play about it, which troubled her deeply, even into old age.
The more I looked, the more I saw Barrie at the very centre of Daphne’s inner life. ‘I grew up not wanting to be on the stage but always imagining myself to be someone else, which again links with this world of imagination which I think was Barrie’s,’ Daphne said in her sixties, alerting me also to a curious opaqueness of memory that I would come to recognise as endemic to Barrie’s influence over children.
At fourteen she wrote her first full-length story, ‘The Seekers’, which reveal
ed his method of captivating a child by telling him a story in which both he and the child figured, so consuming the child’s interest with a narrative full of menace that man and child were soon alone together in a place far from the real world.
Uncle Jim must have been a part of her diaries because he was so much a part of her imagination. She wrote that the first entries showed ‘no budding woman ripe for sex instruction, but someone who perhaps had been left behind on the Never Never Island in Peter Pan’.
Always Barrie’s influence turned on the trick of reaching Neverland, ‘that silent shadow-land that marches a hand’s breadth from our own,’ as Daphne described it. In her thirties she wrote to a friend that Barrie had told her how to get there on her own, by concentrating her mind in a particular way.
I was amazed that I had hitherto failed to pick up the many references to Barrie in Daphne’s work. When I began to read Barrie’s books after reading Daphne’s letters, I was struck by the fact that he too had used real people, including himself, as models for his fictional characters, and that ‘Tommy’, who was Barrie’s alter ego in his two most important novels, Sentimental Tommy and Tommy and Grizel, was the original ‘voice piece’ of her view that all emotion is illusory. Here was Daphne’s notion that people are pegs on which we hang our emotions, that we all live a life of fantasy anyway, that our feelings for others are anything but true. I also found in Barrie the genesis of her notion about the power of texts: that a person’s life can be transmuted in fiction, that the author’s dream may intrude on reality, ‘as a wheel may revolve for a moment after the spring breaks.’
As I was working on this, the film Finding Neverland was first showing in cinemas. It was loosely based on Barrie’s captivation of the five Llewelyn Davies boys, the ‘lost boys’ of Peter Pan, who now took on special significance as Daphne’s first cousins. I knew, of course, about the games of pirates and redskins that Uncle Jim played with them; recalled on stage in the Neverland of Peter Pan. But I was interested to know more about their relationship to Barrie and to Daphne, and in particular I wondered what had happened to them when they grew up.
Piers Dudgeon,
Neverland Page 1