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Summary
Summary
"Hague is very much at home in the world of Peter Pan... . This Peter is the King of the Wild Things... . This is a Peter who would be right after J. M. Barrie's heart." - School Library Journal
Author Notes
James Matthew Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was born on May 9, 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. His idyllic boyhood was shattered by his brother's death when Barrie was six. His own grief and that of his mother influenced the rest of his life. Through his work, he sought to recapture the carefree joy of his first six years.
Barrie came to London as a freelance writer in 1885. His early fiction, Auld Licht Idylls (1888) and A Window in Thrums (1889), were inspired by his youth in Kirriemuir. After publishing a biography of his mother Margaret Ogilvy and the autobiographical novel Sentimental Tommy, about a boy living in a dream world (1896), he concentrated on writing plays.
The Admirable Crichton (1902), the story of a butler who becomes king of a desert island, helped to establish Barrie's reputation as a playwright. Meanwhile, he began to relive his childhood by telling the first Peter Pan stories to the sons of his friend, Sylvia Llewellyn Davies. The play Peter Pan was first performed in 1904 and published as a novel seven years later. Its imaginative drama, featuring the eternal boy's triumph over the grownup Captain Hook, idealizes childhood and underscores adults' inability to regain it. These resonant themes made it a classic of world literature.
Barrie's later work shows his increasingly cynical view of adulthood, particularly in Dear Brutus (1917). Often considered his finest play, it concerns nine men and women whose caprices destroy a miraculous opportunity to relive their lives.
Barrie married the former Mary Ansell in 1894. They divorced in 1909, never having any children. Barrie died in London on June 19, 1937.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A number of classic children's books return in milestone and reissued editions for a new generation. J.M. Barrie's enchanting Peter Pan: 100th Anniversary Edition features a large trim for reading aloud and rich, detailed illustrations by Michael Hague (which he originally published in 1987). Peter Pan's flyaway red hair and tattered garment of "skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees" capture the free spirit of the boy who refused to grow up. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
The classic [cf2]Peter Pan[cf1] story, in Barrie's original whimsical text, is reprinted here, matched in style and imagination by Vess's black-and-white chapter-head illustrations and periodic interior art. Peter is feral and swashbuckling, the pirates are satisfyingly piratical, and the children are at once brave and innocent. Vess's compositions are dynamic and alive; it's a pity there isn't more art. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4-6, younger for reading aloud. Peter Pan, which first gained popularity as a play, was rewritten as a novel seven years later. Hague's full-color illustrations for this narrative rendition exude more magic than Trina Schart Hyman's 1980 version and give a romantic feeling of the Victorian era in which the story is set. However, this Peter Pan is not the sanitized version seen on peanut butter jars his long hair is untamed, and he is garbed in leaves. Captain Hook is certainly Cyril Richard-ish, but Neverland is far more charming and mysterious than its usual representation in stage or television productions. Those who have never read the original story may be surprised its humor is more biting and sophisticated than one would guess. IC. Fantasy [CIP] 87-403
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-J. M. Barrie's classic tale comes to life in this radio play adaptation. Young listeners will once again be thrilled with the antics of Peter, Wendy, Michael, the Lost Boy, Captain Hook, and Tinkerbell. The voices of the children and adult actors are well suited to the story. There are a few places where the dialogue is a little fuzzy, but overall the audio quality is very clear. Following the original tale closely, this radio play is a refreshing change from traditional books on tape and will provide pleasurable listening for young readers. Teachers may want to use it as anexample for expressive reading and acting techniques. A unique selection to add to audio collections.-Ginny Harrell, William M. McGarrah Elementary School, Morrow, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An unusually large, attractive, unabridged edition with dozens of full-page illustrations and smaller vignettes. In style, Gustafson's lusty oil paintings of the pirates are akin to N. C. Wyeth's, though they have more the flavor of compelling dramatic play than real menace. His slim, round-faced, rosy children and cozy interiors are closer to Wyeth's gifted student, Jessie Wilcox Smith, while the ethereal yet mischievous fairy folk recall Rackham. This is not to suggest that the result is merely derivative, in the manner of Michael Hague; Gustafson is a talented craftsman who skillfully melds his references to past greats to create an appropriately traditional style that has enough of a contemporary aura (especially in the characterizations) for broad popular appeal. An endpaper map of ``The Neverland'' and meticulous renditions of intriguing details add to the drama and fun. A perfect gift for a family that reads aloud. (Fiction. 5+)
Excerpts
Excerpts
From Amy Billone's Introduction to Peter Pan Unlike characters in most other children's literature, Peter Pan has achieved mythological status. Even though many people have not read Barrie's novel or play, Peter Pan is now as well known as Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Why is Peter Pan such a memorable drama? The story may be so compelling partly because of its attentiveness to reversibility. Childhood and adulthood, birth and death, boys and girls, dreams and waking life all persistently change places in the story. But they change places in such a way that they reinforce rather than dismantle the oppositions that confuse and distress us. Children do become adults; birth leads to death; boys and girls cannot effortlessly change roles; dreams remain distinct from waking life. Time moves ferociously forward. Even though Peter Pan is the story of a boy who never grows older, the narrative proves that everyone else must age. The first sentence of the novel tells us so: "All children, except one, grow up." While the legend tempts us with achingly desirable unions, it is about the difficulty (if not the impossibility) of fusing disparate worlds: life and death, dreams and reality, masculinity and femininity, childhood and adulthood. Through lively comedy, Peter Pan brilliantly masks the underlying sadness that threatens to pull the story apart. The heartbreaking undercurrents in Peter Pan become evident when we consider the mirroring between fantasy and reality that took place in J. M. Barrie's life. Like Peter Pan, Barrie remained a ghostly outsider. He wanted children of his own but instead found himself staring in at the Llewelyn Davies family, with whom he shared no blood relationship. Peter Pan convinces the Darling children to fly away with him in an attempt to take them from their parents and make them his; Barrie inadvertently achieved the same result with the Davies boys. In 1907 Arthur Llewelyn Davies, their father, died of cancer of the jaw. In 1909 James and Mary Barrie were divorced because of her affair with Gilbert Cannan. And in 1910 Sylvia Llewelyn Davies died of cancer. Barrie was left with five boys--age seven to seventeen--all of whom were now orphans left to his care. What was J. M. Barrie's relationship with the Davies brothers? There are certainly passages in some of Barrie's novels that read, a century after their publication, as suspiciously attentive to the attractiveness of little boys. Barrie's involvement with the Davies boys was unusually close--more intense, perhaps, than typical relationships between parents and their natural offspring. However, Nicholas Llewelyn Davies swore to Barrie's biographer Andrew Birkin that Barrie never showed one hint of homosexuality or pedophilia toward him or his brothers. Critics have for the most part concluded that Barrie was entirely sexless. Nevertheless, he loved the Davies brothers obsessively. We might even go so far as to say that he was in love with at least two of them, George and Michael. As Barrie himself wrote in Margaret Ogilvy , "The fierce joy of loving too much, it is a terrible thing" (p. 206). Years later, Barrie wrote to George Llewelyn Davies, then twenty-one years old and fighting in World War I: I do seem to be sadder today than ever, and more and more wishing you were a girl of 21 instead of a boy, so that I could say the things to you that are now always in my heart. For four years I have been waiting for you to become 21 & a little more, so that we could get closer & closer to each other, without any words needed (quoted in Birkin, p. 228). Shortly after receiving Barrie's letter, George was killed in Flanders. This event was probably the most traumatic experience Barrie had endured since his brotherrrrrrrrrrrrrr's death. But the worst was still to come. On May 19, 1921, Michael Llewelyn Davies, the fourth of the boys, was drowned while swimming in Oxford with his best friend, Rupert Buxton, who also drowned. Like George, Michael died when he was twenty-one. Rumors circulated that the deaths of Michael and his friend Rupert were intentional, the result of a mutual suicide pact. Barrie never recovered from Michael's death. His secretary, Lady Cynthia Asquith, wrote that he looked like a man in a nightmare. He became suicidal and grew quite ill with grief. "All the world is different to me now. Michael was pretty much my world" (letter to Elizabeth Lucas, December 1921; quoted in Birkin, p. 295). He explained in his notebook that he dreamed Michael came back to him, not knowing he had drowned, and that Barrie kept this knowledge from him. The two lived together for another year quite ordinarily though strangely close to each other. Little by little Michael realized what was going to happen to him. Even though Barrie tried to prevent him from swimming, both knew what was sure to happen. Barrie accompanied Michael to the dangerous pool, holding his hand, and when they reached the deadly place, Michael said "good-bye" to Barrie and went into the water and sank. Barrie interrupts his account of the dream with new insight into the import of Peter Pan : "It is as if, long after writing P. Pan, its true meaning came back to me, desperate attempt to grow up but can't." Although Barrie lived for another sixteen years, he was never able to write successfully after Michael died. The author passed away before the final scene of this tragedy, for Peter Llewelyn Davies, too, eventually took his own life; in 1960 he jumped beneath an underground train in London. Excerpted from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.