James Matthew Barrie

The Little White Bird James Matthew Barrie

This book (originally published in 1902) marks the first appearance of Peter Pan. One section gives give a condensed version of the text that later was expanded and elaborated to become Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. In this early version Peter Pan was a first-person narrative about a wealthy bachelor clubman's attachment to a little boy, David. Taking this boy for walks in Kensington Gardens, the narrator tells him of Peter Pan, who can be found in the Gardens at night. Peter Pan was first performed at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, in 1904 but the play had to wait several years for a definitive printed version and it did not appear as a narrative story until 1911. The book was titled Peter and Wendy.

Barrie was a Scottish playwright and novelist. The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism, worked for a Nottingham newspaper, and contributed to various London journals before moving to London in 1885. His early works, Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889), contain fictional sketches of Scottish life. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next 10 years Barrie continued writing novels, but gradually his interest turned toward the theater, from 1930 until his death he was chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.