JM Barrie and Peter Pan
There is an enduring love and interest for Peter Pan, and by association for his creator, the Angus-born writer and dramatist, J M Barrie. Nowadays, most children will come to the character through the Disney films and few nowadays will claim to have read the original but for many years the book stood as a children’s classic. Read the original today as Peter Pan and Other Plays by Oxford Classics or by Penguin Classics as Peter Pan. For Barrie’s other work, there is a Canongate Classic, A Barrie Omnibus: 'Little White Bird', 'Twelve Pound Look', 'Farewell, Miss Julie Logan'.
Recent works of biography have been well-received and have sold well: Andrew Birkin's J M Barrie and the Lost Boys and Lisa Chaney's Hide and Seek With Angels: the Life of J M Barrie.
There has been a successful Peter Pan film recently which has spawned some tie-ins: Peter Pan: The Movie Storybook, and Peter Pan: Welcome to Neverland published by HarperFestival and Peter Pan: Movie Storybook by Simon and Schuster.
More traditional versions are well served by Puffin's Classic Edition, a beautifully illustrated hardcover and paperback, called simply Peter Pan and DK's Peter Pan with CD.
For the moment, royalties from Barrie's books go to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, although copyright expires in EU countries in 2007. That event has inspired the writing of a sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Award-winning author, Geraldine McCaughrean, undertook the production of the sequel which was published in October 2006.
Books featured in this article
- Farewell Miss Julie Logan: A Barrie Omnibus
This selection of J.M. Barrie's work covers three different genres and all the most telling themes to be found in his writing - Scotland, childhood, fantasy, sexual anxiety and social comedy. - J.M. Barrie & The Lost Boys
Originally published in 1979, Andrew Birkin's description of J.M. Barrie's life is based upon a vast range of material by and about Barrie, including notebooks, memoirs and hours of recorded interviews with the Llewelyn Davies family and their close circle of friends. - Peter Pan
When Peter Pan flies into the home of the Darling children, it is only the beginning of their magical adventures, which are filled with pirates, fairies, faraway lands, and crocodiles that tick.
Other titles
- Inventing Wonderland: the Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J M Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and A A Milne - Jackie Wullschlager
- A Window in Thrums - J M Barrie, edited by Ian Campbell
- Sentimental Tommy - J M Barrie
- Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth - Ann Yeoman
Peter Pan Statue, Mearnskirk
Licensed from scran.ac.uk