by J. M. Barrie
Telegram of June 19, 1937, to Peter Davies expressing King George’s condolences on learning about J. M. Barrie’s death. (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)
Later, Barrie would recall the speech at St. Andrews and worry about how “monstrous” it felt to remain alive when Michael was no longer living. He had recurrent nightmares about Michael, who seemed to embody the “true meaning” of Peter Pan: “Desperate attempt to grow up but can’t.”54 In the last two years of his life he dedicated his efforts to a play called The Boy David, a work that took up the biblical story of the young king but that also resonated with Barrie’s life (his dead brother was named David) and with his art (the boy in The Little White Bird is named David). But its debut in Edinburgh was marred by harsh reviews from London critics who had traveled north to see the production, and the play closed after only seven weeks.
Surrounded by friends and showered with honors but bedeviled by dark moods and poor health, Barrie remained conflicted about how to manage his life, asserting at one moment that it was a “law” of his nature to be by himself, at another that he was “alone and lonely.” Cynthia Asquith remained devoted to Barrie, organizing his life and ensuring that he was supported by friends and that he became part of a tight-knit social circle that included her own husband and children. There were many highlights: Barrie was invited to become president of the Society of Authors in 1928; he became chancellor of the University of Edinburgh in 1930; he paid a festive visit to Kirriemuir and had tea with the duke and duchess of York, along with their two small daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. Barrie described how he had a “ferocity of attachment” to his native region and how the houses and hills there had a “steadying effect” on him. These were what Cynthia Asquith referred to as the “gloom and glory” days, but, with Barrie’s deteriorating health, there was far more gloom than glory. Plagued by insomnia all his life, Barrie began taking doses of prescribed heroin that produced terrible mood swings rather than the promised tranquilizing effects. After a dinner party with H. G. Wells hosted by Cynthia and her husband, Beb, Barrie became ill and was transported to a nursing home, and the end came in a matter of days.
Sir James Matthew Barrie died on June 19, 1937, with Peter and Nico at his side. Cynthia Asquith arrived from Cornwall, and Mary Cannan traveled from France to be at the bedside of the man who had once been her husband. The funeral became an occasion for national mourning, and many prominent figures walked behind the coffin on its way to Cemetery Hill in Kirriemuir. At his death Barrie was one of the most famous men of his time. When Chaplin went to London in 1921, he had been asked whom he wished to meet, and at the top of the list was J. M. Barrie.
Given his immense success as a writer and dramatist, it was hardly surprising that Barrie left a considerable fortune behind. In 1929, when asked to lead the appeal for the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, Barrie had declined, but he generously offered the hospital the rights to Peter Pan, The Little White Bird, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Peter and Wendy. The bulk of the estate—beyond bequests to Mary Cannan and to a few servants, friends, and relatives—went to Cynthia Asquith. Jack Llewelyn Davies received £6,000 and Nico, £3,000, and Peter shared Barrie’s furniture, letters, manuscripts, and papers with Cynthia Asquith. The boys could not but be unhappy about the distribution of the estate’s assets (despite and perhaps also because of Barrie’s earlier generosity to them and their family). Years later, Peter’s son expressed how deeply his father resented the fact that he had virtually been cut out of the will: “My father had mixed feelings about the whole business of Peter Pan. He accepted that Barrie considered that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan and it was only reasonable that my father should inherit everything from Barrie. That was my father’s expectation. It would have recompensed him for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan—something he hated.”
Letter of April 18, 1929, thanking Sir James Barrie for his gift of the rights to Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)
That Great Ormond Street Hospital became the beneficiary of Peter Pan ends the story of J. M. Barrie on a powerfully magnanimous note. Barrie understood well the perils of inheritances, and he no doubt hoped that the three surviving boys would find in their work the same passion and success that he experienced. If it was not to be (although Peter and Nico had some success in the publishing business), there is full consolation in the fact that Peter Pan benefited thousands of children who passed through the doors of Great Ormond Street Hospital. Peter Pan may never have grown up, but the play about him enabled many children to survive illnesses, giving them a chance to grow up through the boy who refused to do so.
1. Allison B. Kavey discusses some of the negative associations in her introduction (“From Peanut Butter Jars to the Silver Screen”) to Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 1–12.
2. Graham Chainey, A Literary History of Cambridge, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 225.
3. J.M. Barrie, Margaret Ogilvy, by Her Son, J. M. Barrie (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923), 156.
4. Ibid., 30.
5. Ibid., 42.
6. J. M. Barrie, Tommy and Grizel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 88.
7. Anthony Lane, “Lost Boys,” The New Yorker, November 22, 2004, 98–103.
8. Warren Roberts, Charles T. Boulton, and Elizabeth Mansfield, eds., The Letters of D. H. Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 48.
9. Barrie, Margaret Ogilvy, 30.
10. Ibid., 16–17.
11. Ibid., 49.
12. J. A. Hammerton, The Story of a Genius (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1929), 36.
13. Barrie, Margaret Ogilvy, 50–51.
14. Ibid.
15. J. M. Barrie, The Greenwood Hat, Being a Memoir of James Anon (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 64.
16. Dunbar, J. M. Barrie: The Man Behind the Image, 35–36.
17. Ibid., 41.
18. Barrie, Greenwood Hat, 29.
19. J. M. Barrie, The Little Minister (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921), vii.
20. Barrie, Greenwood Hat, 266.
21. Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, 25.
22. James Matthew Barrie, McConnachie and J. M. B.: Speeches by J. M. Barrie (London: Peter Davies, 1938), 13.
23. J. M. Barrie, “My Ghastly Dream,” Edinburgh Evening Post, 1887.
24. Mary Ansell, Dogs and Men (New York: Ayer, 1970), 42.
25. Dolly Ponsonby, Diaries, October 13, 1891, cited by Lisa Chaney, Hide-and-Seek with Angels: Life of J. M. Barrie, The Author of Peter Pan (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 151.
26. Dunbar, J. M. Barrie, 115–16.
27. Beinecke Library, MS Vault BARRIE, A3.
28. Barrie, Little White Bird, 206.
29. Barrie, Tommy and Grizel, 399.
30. Ibid., 117.
31. Ibid., 179.
32. Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, 88.
33. Ibid., 96.
34. J. M. Barrie, Dedication, Peter Pan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), vii.
35. Dunbar, J. M. Barrie, 128.
36. Phyllis Robbins, Maude Adams: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Putnam, 1956), 90.
37. Ibid., 143.
38. Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, 130.
39. Chaney, Hide-and-Seek with Angels, 253.
40. Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, 145.
41. William Meredith uses the phrase in a letter to Barrie’s publisher. See Dunbar, J. M. Barrie, 180.
42. Dunbar, J. M. Barrie, 181.
43. Ibid., 190.
44. Yeoman, Now or Neverland, 147.
45. Viola Meynell, ed., Letters of J. M. Barrie (London: Peter Davies, 1942), 22.
46. Allen Wright, J. M. Barrie: Glamour of Twilight (Edinbu
rgh: Ramsay Head Press, 1976), 20.
47. Birkin, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, 243.
48. Wright, 27.
49. Ibid., 244.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 243.
52. Ibid., 245.
53. Chaney, Hide-and-Seek with Angels, 349.
54. Beinecke Library, MS Vault BARRIE, A2/40.
A Note on the Text of Peter and Wendy
Barrie published his novel Peter and Wendy in 1911, and it was released again in 1915 as Peter Pan and Wendy in the form of a school edition. Both volumes had pen-and-ink illustrations by the British artist F. D. Bedford, who had made a name for himself as an illustrator for books by Charles Dickens, George MacDonald, and E. V. Lucas. Trained as an architect, Bedford placed Barrie’s characters in intricately fashioned landscapes of expressive depth. In 1921, the volume was reissued again under the title Peter Pan and Wendy, with full-page color illustrations by Mabel Lucie Attwell, whose child-centered, appealingly sweet, pastel images were much in vogue at the time. Since then, the volume is usually published under the title Peter Pan. The text that follows is based on Peter and Wendy, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1911. The images are from Peter and Wendy, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1911.
The Darling family takes center stage, with Mr. Darling warding off Wendy’s efforts to have him take his medicine, while Mrs. Darling lavishes maternal affection on the boys. Neverland looms large in the figures of Hook and Tiger Lily, both wielding sinister weapons (hook and tomahawk), and mermaids prepare to lure the children to their underwater realm. Peter observes it all from on high with a playful benevolence. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
The Darling children sleep peacefully as Peter crosses the threshold in the glow of Tinker Bell’s light and the stars above. A border of fanciful beasts and other artwork adorn the nursery walls. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Mr. and Mrs. Darling mourn the flight of the children, and Nana moans in sympathy. The darkness of London is pierced by what is most likely the cometlike appearance of the children on their way to Neverland. The disorder in the nursery reminds us that the children have chosen an anarchic alternative to domestic life. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Peter Pan plays his pipes on a boulder, surrounded by creatures both feral and tame. Clusters of Indians, pirates, and mermaids appear in the middle ground, while mountains in the background form a background for the conflict between Hook and the crocodile. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
The Darling children manage to preserve their strength by nipping food out of the mouths of birds. The children mingle with the birds in a euphoric fantasy alive with playful energy. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Surrounded by dancing fairies, Peter, with sword in hand, nods off in front of the house with its chimney made from John’s hat. Danger appears in the form of the wolves lurking behind a rock and running in a pack. The deciduous tree near the house forms a contrast with the palm trees in other illustrations. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
The arc of a rainbow unites water and air, while creatures of the sea and of the heavens mingle joyfully with one another. In this radiant setting, the romance of Neverland is presented with intensely detailed compositional energy. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Peter gazes at the moon in the heavens from his island perch as he contemplates death by drowning. Bedford added the question mark to what in the novel is a declaration. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
No longer the center of attention, Peter seems enveloped in melancholy while Wendy tells the lost boys a story. Aboveground, the Indians eavesdrop through openings in the tree trunks. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
In a scene resembling the biblical Massacre of Innocents, the lost boys are flung from hand to hand in a “ruthless” manner. Hook ponders how to manage a horrified Wendy, who is paralyzed by the scene unfolding before her eyes. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
As comfortable on land as he is in the water or in the air, Peter is that rare creature who is not even aware when he is passing from one domain into the other. As he moves from shore to water, he plots his conquest of Hook. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Peter has two swords to defend himself in the fight with Hook, whose pugnacious strength is intensified by the oversized hook extending from one arm. With Medusa-like locks, Hook towers over his nimble opponent. The lost boys watch with trepidation and admiration; all the while the crocodile makes its way, in profile, toward the ship. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
Wendy watches her daughter Jane delight in the sensory bliss of flight, while Peter and Wendy gaze on with delight in one case and anxiety in the other. (© 1911 Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette UK)
CHAPTER 1
Peter Breaks Through
All children, except one, grow up.1 They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy2 knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart3 and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up.4 You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.5
Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East,6 however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it7 that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him.8 He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
Mabel Lucie Attwell, Peter Pan and Wendy, 1921. (Lucie Attwell Ltd. Courtesy of Vicki Thomas Associates)
Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pic tures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs. Darling’s guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs. Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,9 while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
“Now don’t interrupt,” he would beg of her. “I have one pound seventeen10 here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, ma
king two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven,—who is that moving?—eight nine seven, dot and carry seven—don’t speak, my own—and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door—quiet, child—dot and carry child—there, you’ve done it!—did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?”
“Of course we can, George,”11 she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy’s favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
“Remember mumps,” he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went again. “Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I dare say it will be more like thirty shillings—don’t speak—measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six—don’t waggle your finger—whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings”—and so on it went, and it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.