4 Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic’s Dictionary (2003).
5 Peter and Wendy (1911).
6 Nicholas Spanos in Carroll, The Skeptic’s Dictionary.
7 Rose, The Case of Peter Pan.
8 C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
9 F. L. Marcuse, Hypnosis: Fact and Fiction (1959).
10 Interview by Andrew Birkin with Norma Douglas Henry, March 1978.
Chapter Six
Peter Pan, a demon boy
1 Denis Mackail, The Story of J.M.B.
2 David Crane, Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy in the Extreme South (2005).
3 J. M. Barrie, Introduction to The Personal Journals of Captain R. F. Scott, RN, CVO (1912).
4 Crane, Scott of the Antarctic.
5 The Morgue and Nico’s letters to Andrew Birkin.
Chapter Seven
Sylvia’s Will
1 Diana Farr, Gilbert Cannan: A Georgian Prodigy (1978).
2 Mackail, The Story of J.M.B.
3 Letter from Jack Llewelyn Davies to his brother Peter, 1952.
4 Letter from Nico Llewelyn Davies to Andrew Birkin, 1975.
5 Letter from Nico Llewelyn Davies to Andrew Birkin, 1970.
6 Mackail, The Story of J.M.B.
7 Letter from J. M. Barrie to Turley Smith, 10 July 1911.
Part V
Chapter One
Looking for Michael
1 Interview with Andrew Birkin.
2 Dedication to Peter Pan (1928).
3 Daphne du Maurier, ‘Neil and Tintinnabulum’, published in The Flying Carpet, edited by Cynthia Asquith (1925).
4 Letter from J. M. Barrie to Turley Smith, 10 May 1911.
5 Letter from Nico Llewelyn Davies to Andrew Birkin, 24 November 1975.
6 The Morgue.
7 J. M. Barrie, Dedication to Peter Pan (edn 1928).
8 Interview with Andrew Birkin, March 1978.
9 J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy (1911).
10 Neville Cardus, Autobiography (1947).
Chapter Two
Daphne’s Initiation
1 Daphne du Maurier, Gerald: A Portrait (1934).
2 BBC Radio interview, 1973.
3 Daphne du Maurier, Gerald: A Portrait (1934).
4 BBC Radio interview, 1973.
5 Forster, Daphne du Maurier.
6 Interview in the Hampstead and Highgate Express (1973).
7 Daphne du Maurier, Gerald: A Portrait (1934).
8 Interview in the Hampstead and Highgate Express (1973).
9 Flavia Leng, Daphne du Maurier.
10 Daphne du Maurier, Myself When Young (1970).
11 Angela du Maurier, It’s Only the Sister.
12 Daily Mail, 20 May, 2007.
13 Daphne du Maurier, ‘A Borderline Case’, Not After Midnight (1971).
14 Daphne du Maurier, Myself When Young (1970).
15 Nina Auerbach, Daphne du Maurier: Haunted Heiress (2000).
Chapter Three
Michael’s suicide
1 Alison Lurie, New York Review of Books, 6 February 1975.
2 ‘Neil and Tintinnabulum’, in The Flying Carpet, edited by Cynthia Asquith (1925).
3 Nico’s letter to Andrew Birkin, 11 December 1975.
Part VI
Chapter One
Rebecca, a demon boy
1 Andrew Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys (1979).
2 Letter from Lawrence to Mary Ansell, 4 July 1921.
3 Charlie Chaplin, My Trip Abroad (1922).
4 Janet Dunbar, J. M. Barrie: The Man behind the Image (1970).
5 Daphne du Maurier, Enchanted Cornwall (1989).
6 Daphne du Maurier, Gerald: A Portrait (1934).
7 Daphne du Maurier, Enchanted Cornwall.
8 Daphne du Maurier, The Du Mauriers (1937).
9 Daphne du Maurier, Enchanted Cornwall.
10 Ibid.
11 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Ellen Doubleday, 10 December 1947.
12 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Oriel Malet, 31 January 1962.
13 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Oriel Malet, 6 June 1955.
14 Flavia Leng, Daphne du Maurier (1994).
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Maureen Baker-Munton, 4 July 1957.
18 Forster, Daphne du Maurier.
19 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Maureen Baker-Munton, 4 July 1957.
20 Forster, Daphne du Maurier.
Chapter Two
Breakdown and suicide
1 Oriel Malet, Letters from Menabilly (1993).
2 Letter from Daphne du Maurier to Maureen Baker-Munton, 4 July 1957.
3 Nico Llewelyn Davies to Nanny Hodgson, 13 October 1957.
4 Published by Weidenfeld in 1994.
5 Margaret Forster, Daphne du Maurier (1993).
6 Quoted in Daphne du Maurier, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte (1960).
Chapter Three
No escape
1 ‘Another World’, in Daphne du Maurier Enchanted Cornwall.
2 Daphne du Maurier, Enchanted Cornwall.
Appendix
1 Letters 11, 225n.
2 Joyce Carol Oates, ‘Lawrence’s Götterdammerung: the Apocalyptic Vision of Women in Love’, in Harold Broom (ed.), D. H. Lawrence (1986).
Acknowledgements and Sources
My special thanks to Kits Browning, Daphne du Maurier’s son and literary executor, and his wife, Hacker, for their support in the research and writing of this book, and for reading and commenting on the text. The work Kits and his sisters, Tessa (Lady Montgomery) and Flavia (Lady Leng), have done since their mother died in 1989 is largely responsible for the vigorous interest in the writings of Daphne du Maurier among a new generation of readers today, as well as among scholars throughout the world.
My sincere gratitude to the writer and film maker Andrew Birkin, without whose permission to quote, from interviews he undertook in the 1970s with people who knew J. M. Barrie, this book would have been immeasurably poorer. Andrew Birkin generously shares his own archive of research through the web site jmbarrie.co.uk.
Unexpected pearls are the diaries and letters of Dorothea Parry, later Lady Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and those of Arthur, Lord Ponsonby, her husband, which provide a fascinating glimpse of life from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, and a special insight into the lives of both the du Maurier and Llewelyn Davies families. I am truly grateful to Laura Ponsonby and Kate Russell for their kind permission to consult this material and quote from it.
Among the many libraries and archives consulted I would in particular like to thank the following for their assistance: Timothy Young, Associate Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Geraldine Gardner and Christine Faunch, the du Maurier Archive, Special Collections, University of Exeter; Colin Harris, Special Collections, New Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge; Special Collections, Edinburgh Library; and the Institute of Psychiatry, London.
Thanks to Tessa Montgomery and Flavia Leng for reading the manuscript and to Laura Duguid for her permission to quote from the letters of the Llewelyn Davies family.
Thanks to the following for the wisdom of their advice on a wide range of topics: Colin Wilson, David Lodge, Hans Kuyper, Peter Fjagesund, Rupert Tower, Sally Beauman, Margaret Forster, Anthony Sheil, Penelope Hoare, Parisa Ebrahimi and Beth Humphries.
It is with gratitude that I refer readers to the sections entitled ‘Notes and References’, ‘Works of George du Maurier, J. M. Barrie and Daphne du Maurier’ and ‘Sources’, which serve as a guide to the many books and articles I consulted in the course of my research. I would like to thank the publishers and authors of works quoted.
I am grateful to the following for supplying photographs: Andrew Birkin; Kits Browning; Samuel French Ltd; Christine De Poortere, Peter Pan Project Dire
ctor Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity; Christine Faunch, the du Maurier archive; and Laura Ponsonby and Kate Russell of Shulbrede Priory.
Finally I would like to thank my wife, Dee, for her help and encouragement.
Sources
Ansell, Mary Dogs and Men (Duckworth, 1923).
Asquith, Cynthia (Ed.) The Flying Carpet (Partridge, 1926).
Auerbach, Nina Daphne du Maurier: Haunted Heiress (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).
Barker, Juliet The Brontës (Weidenfeld, 1994).
Barrie, J M: the Works. These are now mostly out of print, but may be purchased via abebooks.co.uk. Hodder and Stoughton was his principal UK publisher.
Birkin, Andrew J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys (Constable, 1979; Yale UP, 2003).
Blake, George Barrie and the Kailyard School (Barker, 1951).
Cardus, Neville Autobiography (Collins, 1947).
Carrington, Dora Letters and Diaries, edited by David Garnett (Cape, 1975).
Chaplin, Charlie My Trip Abroad (Hurst & Blackett, 1922).
Connolly, Joseph Jerome K. Jerome (Orbis, 1982).
Cook, Judith Daphne (Bantam Press, 1991).
Crane, David Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy in the Extreme South (HarperCollins, 2005).
Darlington, William Aubrey J M Barrie (Blackie, 1938).
du Maurier, Angela It’s Only the Sister (Peter Davies, 1950).
du Maurier, Daphne: the Works. These are published in the UK by Gollancz (Orion) in hardcover and by Virago in paperback.
du Maurier, George: the Works. These are now mostly out of print, but may be purchased via abebooks.co.uk.
Dunbar, Janet The Man and the Image (Collins, 1970).
Farr, Diana Gilbert Cannan: A Georgian Prodigy (Chatto & Windus, 1978).
Forster, Margaret Daphne du Maurier (Chatto & Windus, 1993).
Frazer, James The Golden Bough (Macmillan, 1949).
Gilder, Jeanette Trilbyana (Critic, 1895).
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von Faust (Dent, 1908).
Green, Roger Lancelyn Fifty Years of Peter Pan (Peter Davies, 1954).
— J.M. Barrie (Bodley Head, 1960).
Guillain, Georges Jean-Martin Charcot, 1825–1893 (Pitman, 1959).
Hammerton, John Alexander Barrie: The Story of a Genius (Sampson Low, 1929).
Harding, James Gerald du Maurier (Hodder & Stoughton, 1989).
Holroyd, Michael Lytton Strachey: A Biography (Penguin, 1971).
Ionides, Alexander Constantine. Ion: A Grandfather’s Tale (Cuala Press, 1927).
Ionides, Luke Memories (Herbert Clarke,1925).
James, Henry Terminations (Heinemann, 1893).
Jerome K. Jerome, My Life and Times (Hodder and Stoughton, 1925).
Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage, 1960).
— The Archetypes of the Unconscious (Routledge, 1959).
— Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Princeton/Bollinger, 1966).
— Psychology and Alchemy (Routledge, 1953).
Lamont, L.M. (Ed.) Thomas Armstrong, C.B.: A Memoir (Martin Seeker, 1912).
Lawrence, D.H. Women in Love (Martin Seeker, 1920).
Leng, Flavia Daphne du Maurier (Mainstream, 1994).
Lodge, David Author, Author (Seeker & Warburg, 2004).
Mackail, Denis The Story of J.M.B. (Peter Davies, 1941).
Malet, Oriel Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship (Orion, 1993).
Marcuse, F.L. Hypnosis, Fact and Fiction (Penguin, 1959).
Maude, Pamela Worlds Away (Heinemann, 1964).
Millar, C.C. Hoyer George du Maurier and Others (Cassell, 1937).
Moore, Harry T The Priest of Love: A Life of D.H. Lawrence (Penguin, 1976).
Moscheles, Felix In Bohemia with George du Maurier (T.F. Unwin, 1896).
Ormond, Leonee George du Maurier (Routledge, 1969).
Otto, Walter Dionysus, Myth and Cult (Spring, 1991).
Pearsall, Ronald Conan Doyle (Weidenfeld, 1977).
Pearson, Hesketh Conan Doyle (Methuen, 1943).
Rabelais, Francois Gargantua and Pantagruel (Penguin, 1955).
Rabelais Club, The Recreations of the Rabelais (Members only limited editions – 3 vols, 1881–1888).
Raine, Kathleen Blake and Tradition (Routledge, 1969).
Rose, Jacqueline The Case of Peter Pan ( Macmillan, 1984).
Schneck , James ‘Henry James, George du Maurier, and Mesmerism: The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (1978, Vol. XXVI, No.2, 76–80).
Scott, Robert Falcon The Personal Journals of Captain R F Scott, RN, CVO, on his Journey to the South Pole (John Murray, 1923).
Showalter, Elaine Introduction to: Trilby (Oxford UP, 1995).
Spielmann, M.H. and Layard, L.S. Kate Greenaway (Black, 1905).
Stevenson, R.L. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Penguin, 1979).
Tatar, Maria M Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature (New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1978).
Savage, Jon Teenage: the Creation of Youth 1875–1845 (Chatto & Windus, 2007).
Van Druten, John Behold, We Live (Gollancz, 1932).
Vandam, Albert The Trail of Trilby (1895).
Wilson, Colin New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (Gollancz 1972).
— The Occult (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971).
— Dreaming to some Purpose (Century, 2004).
Winn, Denise The Manipulated Mind, Brainwashing, Conditioning and Indoctrination (Malor, 2000).
Young-Eisendrath, Polly and Dawson, Terence (Ed.) The Historical Context of Analytical Psychology (Cambridge UP, 1997).
Index
Abbey, Edwin 118n
Ainger, Alfred 130n, 145
Alchemy 132-4, 162, 165, 206, 211, 216, 225, 263, 268, 274-5, 284, 289, 294
Allahakbarries club 96, 118n, 120, 195
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence 49 and note, 50, 118n, 153
Amundsen, Roald 182n
Andersen, Wellwood ‘Wedd’ 62
Anna O see Pappenheim, Bertha ‘Anna O’
Ansell, Mary see Barrie, Mary
Armstrong, Thomas ‘Tom’ 44-5, 56, 80-1, 82, 83
Ashbee, Henry 102
Asquith, Lady Cynthia 10-11, 18, 20, 76, 201, 210, 236, 243, 249 and note
The Flying Carpet 257
Auerbach, Professor Nina 230
Baker-Munton, Maureen 271, 272n, 275, 280
Baldwin, Stanley 265
Ballantyne, R.M., The Coral Island 62, 67, 156, 169
Balzac, Honoré de 78
Barber, Dr Theodore 107
Barker, Juliet, The Brontës 284
Barrie, Alexander ‘Alick’ 58, 59, 71, 72-3, 94
Barrie, Charles 72, 94
Barrie, David Jnr 59-61, 70-3, 77, 172
Barrie, David Snr 58, 71
Barrie, Jane Ann 59, 60, 68
Barrie, J.M.
and his St Bernard dog 4-5
relationship with Llewelyn
Davies boys 4, 5, 6, 16, 156-7, 158-9, 173-4
affinity with children 5, 16, 93-6, 152, 157
description of 5, 63, 151
and first meeting with Sylvia 6, 152-3, 155, 156
helps Peter Llewelyn Davies set up as publisher 8
illness and death of 9, 10-11, 264-6
dependence on heroin 10
will of 10-11
on holiday with the Llewelyn Davies boys 12, 158-9, 160, 169, 232
and Nanny Hodgson 12-13, 156-7
relationship with Sylvia 17-18, 150-1, 156, 158, 159-60, 160-6, 179, 185, 221
as possible homosexual 18-19, 23-4, 231
conscious innocence of 23
relationship with George 25, 157-8, 168-9, 170, 171-3, 174-5, 207
as figure in Daphne du Maurier’s stories 31-4, 150 and note
awareness of aura surrounding Llewelyn Davies boys 35-6
birth and childhood 58-65
and death of brother David 59-61, 70-3, 172, 296-
7
relationship with his mother 60-1, 68, 70-1, 73, 74-7
fantasy-world of 61-2, 64, 66, 67-8
schooldays 61-5
first play 62-3
relationship with women 63, 93, 96-7, 119-20
tendency to hero-worship 64-6, 68, 179-82
character of 66-8, 69, 92, 93, 151
becomes leader writer on Nottingham Journal 69-70
dislike of sentimentality 69-70, 76
and death of mother 76-7
arrival in London 91
literary output 91-3
dual personality of 92-3, 251-2, 285 and note
and the Thrum novels 92, 116, 146-7
and village cricket 95, 151
comment on Henry James 100n
influence of du Maurier on 116-20
suffers a nervous breakdown 120, 121
marriage to Mary Ansell 121-2
links with Faustian pact 131-2
autobiographical psycho-novels 146-7
attends the Lewis’s parties 154-5
humour of 158-9
financial wealth of 159-60
alchemic texts 162-6, 206, 211, 216
move to Leinster Terrace 167-8
and island motif 169-71
and hypnotism 170-2, 174-5
obsession with death 172-3, 207
relationship with his sister Maggie 172
relationship with Michael 178, 179, 201-3, 205-8, 235-8
and death of Arthur 183-5, 186, 187
reaction to Scott’s marriage 187-8
divorce from Mary 188-9
move to Adelphi Terrace 189-90
and death of Sylvia 190-1, 207-8
tells Jack that Sylvia had agreed to marry him 191
becomes guardian to the Llewelyn Davies boys 192-7
alters Sylvia’s will in his favour 195-7, 210
and the supernatural 207, 210-11
at Adelphi Terrace 208, 209-10
considered sinister and intimidating 209, 210-12
as the Demon Boy 210-11, 268
relationship with Gerald du Maurier 214-17, 220, 222, 256, 262
relationship with Daphne 217, 219-22, 229, 255, 256-7, 262, 263, 269, 280-1, 282
boy-cult of 219-22, 264, 268, 276
morbid streak 235, 236, 244
and death of Michael 242-3, 245, 250
predatory nature of 244
and knowledge of ‘other-world intimacy’ 291-2
fictionalised in Women in Love 293-7
works by:
The Admirable Crichton 169, 213, 215
‘An Auld Licht Community’ 91
Bandelero the Bandit 62-3
The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island 7, 62, 96, 160, 183
Neverland Page 38