Bibliography
Recommend a title for bookclub
Click on a title to buy it, read other users' comments or to post your own comment:
- Auld Licht Idylls, 1888
- A Window in Thrums, 1889
- The Little Minister, 1891
- Margaret Ogilvy, 1896
- Sentimental Tommy, 1896
- Quality Street (play), 1901
- The Little White Bird, 1901
- The Admirable Crichton (play), 1902
- Tommy and Grizel, 1902
- Peter Pan (play), 1904
- Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, 1906
- What Every Woman Knows (play), 1908
- Peter and Wendy (novel), 1911
A Good Place To Start
| Title | Votes | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentimental Tommy | 1 | |
| Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens | 1 |
A Bad Place To Start
| Title | Votes | |
|---|---|---|
| Tommy and Grizel | 1 |
Genres
Categorization is odious. There is tremendous overlap among genres. These pigeonholes are offered only as a convenience.
J. M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)
added by Marian
Comments
Please consider recommending where to begin reading this author, or where not to. A few words about your experiences reading this author and why you make the recommendations you do will be helpful to other users. If you are the author or have studied this author extensively, please say so.
PETER AND WENDY (the novel that people mean when they say "Peter Pan") is a strange, even disturbing book that got a grip on my imagination when I was little, and has never let go. THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON is a wonderful semi-Shavian play that you want to read if only so you'll understand the "Crichton" references in other things (e.g., RED DWARF, the British science fiction comedy series). You will then know whether you want to read other, lesser works by the same writer.
Biography
Please consider entering an additional brief biography here. You can Google this author by clicking here.
IN ROYAL WORDS - "UNIVERSALLY MOURNED": THE AUTHOR OF "PETER PAN." (This obituary was printed in The Illustrated London News):
The nation's sorrow at the passing of Sir James Barrie, who died in London on June 19, aged seventy-seven, was expressed in the King's message of sympathy to Mr. Peter Davies (as a boy the original of "Peter Pan). "His loss," said the King, "will be universally mourned, for his writing has brought joy and inspiration to young and old alike." James Matthew Barrie was born on May 9, 1860, at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, a town he afterwards immortalized as Thrums. He was one of ten children of a hand-loom weaver, who managed to give him a good education, eventually at Edinburgh University, of which, in 1930, he became Chancellor. Barrie began his career in journalism, on the "Nottingham Daily Journal," but soon gravitated to London. In 1888 he published "Auld Licht Idylls," followed by "When A Man's Single," and "A Window On Thrums." In 1891 came "The Little Minister," which in 1897, in dramatic form, established him as a successful playwright. "Peter Pan" appeared in 1904, an ever since has been an annual institution. In 1929 Barrie presented all rights in it to the Children's Hospital. Among his numerous other plays are "The Professor's Love Story," "Quality Street," "The Admirable Crichton," "Dear Brutus," "Mary Rose," and "The Boy David." In 1913 he received a baronetcy and in 1922 the Order of Merit.
(found at http://www.jmbarrie.net/obit.html)
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Here's a much more personal biography, from the website of the Great Ormond Street Hospital (the beneficiary of Barrie's will):
James Matthew Barrie was born in the small weaving town of Kirriemuir, Scotland on 9 May 1860, the ninth of ten children of a handloom weaver and his ambitious wife, Margaret Ogilvy.
For the first six years of his life, James lived in the shadow of his mother's love for his older brother David. Tragically, on the eve of his 14th birthday, David was gravely injured in a skating accident and died shortly afterwards. While his mother derived some consolation from the notion that David would remain a boy forever, Barrie drew inspiration. In his desperate attempt to be loved and to replace David in his mother's life, Barrie virtually became David.
Trying so hard to be his brother stunted his own development--coincidentally at the same age at which his brother had died. At 14--and only five foot high--he stopped growing and never grew any taller.
The notion of the everlasting childhood stayed with Barrie and became one of the defining reasons for his lifelong love of children, as well as the inspiration for his most famous play, Peter Pan. It would be another 33 years before that inspiration emerged in the shape of Peter Pan, but here was the germ, rooted in his mind from the age of six.
Barrie married Mary Ansell, an actress, in 1894 and although they had no children, he had many as friends. He had previously known a little girl, Margaret Henley, who died at the age of six. She called him 'my friendy', which she lisped as 'fwendy' or 'wendy', and thus a new girl's name was born. Barrie immortalised her in 'Peter Pan' by calling his heroine Wendy.
In Kensington Gardens in 1897, Barrie met the eldest three Llewelyn Davis boys, George (five), Jack (four) and Peter, who was still in his pram. Two more sons, Michael and Nico, joined the family in the next few years. Barrie developed a strong friendship with the children and their parents, Sylvia and Arthur. When Sylvia and Arthur both tragically died of cancer, when the boys were still young, Barrie became their guardian and, although now divorced from Mary, decided to adopt them and bring them up as his own.
His life with the boys has been explained as the strongest inspiration for the creation of Peter Pan in 1904. Barrie himself once said:
"By rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks to produce a flame, I made the spark of you that is Peter Pan."
http://www.gosh.org/about_us/peterpan/barrie.html
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SEVERAL BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS ABOUT BARRIE ARE LISTED UNDER "FURTHER READING" AT:
http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrPeterPan5.html
Marian February 17th, 2006 04:02 PM PST