Peter Pan

PENGUIN
CLASSICS

PETER PAN

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland, in 1860, the ninth of ten children. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and at Dumfries Academy before enrolling at the University of Edinburgh. While a student there, he became a freelance drama critic and joined a debating society, gradually learning to overcome his shyness. He earned his M.A. in 1882. In 1885, after a brief period writing for the
Nottingham Journal
, he moved to London, where he threw himself into his work, publishing numerous articles and stories. His first major book publication was
Auld Licht Idylls
(1888), a collection of sketches of rural Scotland during the early nineteenth century, followed by the similar
A Window in Thrums
(1889). His first novel,
The Little Minister
(1891), enjoyed critical and popular acclaim, as did its 1897 stage adaptation. In 1896, Barrie produced two important works:
Margaret Ogilvy
, the biography of his mother, and
Sentimental Tommy
, a novel that along with its sequel,
Tommy and Grizel
(1900), presaged the themes of
Peter Pan
, who first appeared in chapters of the 1902 novel
The Little White Bird.
Barrie went on to make a name for himself as a dramatist with plays including
Quality Street
(1902),
The Admirable Crichton
(1902),
Little Mary
(1903),
Alice Sit-by-the-Fire
(1905),
What Every Woman Knows
(1908), and
A Slice of Life
(1910). The play
Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up
premiered in London on December 27, 1904, and was an immediate and enduring success. Barrie published the Peter Pan stories from
The Little White Bird
in a volume called
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
in 1906, then turned the play into a novel,
Peter and Wendy
, in 1911. His later works include the plays
Dear Brutus
(1917),
Mary Rose
(1920), and
The Boy David
(1936), but it is because of his creation Peter Pan that his reputation endures. The play of
Peter Pan
was published in 1928. J. M. Barrie died in 1937.

JACK ZIPES
is a professor of German at the University of Minnesota. A specialist in folklore, fairy tales, and children’s literature, he has translated such works as the fairy tales of the
Brothers Grimm and Hermann Hesse, written several books of criticism, and edited numerous anthologies including
Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture
(Penguin). For Penguin Classics he has edited
The Wonderful World of Oz
, an omnibus comprising L. Frank Baum’s
The Wizard of Oz, The Emerald City of Oz
, and
Glinda of Oz
, and Carlo Collodi’s
Pinocchio.
Jack Zipes has been honored with the Distinguished Scholar Award by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts.

Introduction

Suggestions for Further Reading

A Note on the Texts and Illustrations

PETER AND WENDY

       CHAPTER I
     PETER BREAKS THROUGH

      CHAPTER II
     THE SHADOW

     CHAPTER III
     COME AWAY, COME AWAY!

     CHAPTER IV
     THE FLIGHT

      CHAPTER V
     THE ISLAND COME TRUE

    CHAPTER VI
     THE LITTLE HOUSE

   CHAPTER VII
     THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND

  CHAPTER VIII
     THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON

    CHAPTER IX
     THE NEVER BIRD

     CHAPTER X
     THE HAPPY HOME

   CHAPTER XI
     WENDY’S STORY

  CHAPTER XII
     THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF

 CHAPTER XIII
     DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?

 CHAPTER XIV
     THE PIRATE SHIP

  CHAPTER XV
     “HOOK OR ME THIS TIME”

 CHAPTER XVI
     THE RETURN HOME

CHAPTER XVII
     WHEN WENDY GREW UP

PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS

      CHAPTER I
     THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS

     CHAPTER II
     PETER PAN

    CHAPTER III
     THE THRUSH’S NEST

    CHAPTER IV
     LOCK-OUT TIME

     CHAPTER V
     THE LITTLE HOUSE

    CHAPTER VI
     PETER’S GOAT

Explanatory Notes

Though made famous by its major protagonist Peter Pan, the novel
Peter and Wendy
is rarely read in its original form today, if it was ever widely read. Certainly, millions of children and adults know about Peter Pan, but not because of the novel. Rather, most people have experienced him flying across a stage, often impersonated by women such as the marvelous actresses Eva Le Gallienne, Jean Arthur, and Mary Martin, or they have watched the Disney animated version. In fact, most young people and adults were probably introduced to Peter and his friends through an adulterated version, a Disney book, a television adaptation, Peter Pan artifacts, a local production of the play, or Steven Spielberg’s film
Hook.
They have most likely never read J. M. Barrie’s stories in
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
(1906), the novel
Peter and Wendy
(1911), or the play
Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up
(final text in 1928) in the original. The name J. M. Barrie may mean nothing to them. Yet there is a fascinating history behind James Matthew Barrie, the imaginative creator of Peter Pan, and it can help us to understand why Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up, continues to capture the imagination of people throughout the world.

Barrie and his Peter Pan works have always been held in high esteem in literary circles, at least up through the 1970s, but the more recent critics of the play (produced in 1904) and the novel (published in 1911) can barely restrain themselves from charging Barrie with escapism and infantilism and with taking some kind of perverse delight in the manipulation of children.
Almost all scholars identify Barrie with Peter Pan as a kind of
Doppelgänger
and introduce telltale biographical aspects into their interpretations of his works. After all, Barrie was a very short person, a whimsical man who could be generous and cruel at the same time. He was unpredictable and moody. He had great difficulty loving and being loved. Essentially he lived for his writing and died a loner. So it is not unfair to ask whether the figure of Peter Pan, whose play Barrie kept revising until its official publication in 1928, was a projection of his inner life. And if so, did he subconsciously incorporate many of his secret longings into all his writings about Peter Pan, Wendy, the Darling Brothers, and the Lost Boys? Who was Wendy? Who were these brothers and these boys? Some critics have argued that Peter’s relationship with Wendy reflected Barrie’s unresolved oedipal connection to his own mother, or perhaps his infatuation with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the mother of three boys he met in Kensington Gardens. Some have taken Barrie to task for exploiting these boys in his works and in real life. They have suggested that Barrie might have been a pedophile or closeted homosexual. One critic, Jacqueline Rose, has even elaborated on the Peter Pan works as a case study to argue that children’s literature as a whole involves exploitive if not sadistic treatment of the characters of children in narratives, and that these narratives engender representations of childhood that basically satisfy the desires, urges, and drives of the author, rationalizing his or her behavior. Children’s literature, according to Rose, is not for the benefit or delight of children. Rather, the narrative manipulation may somehow be connected to the manner in which children are always used, if not exploited, by adults in the socialization process.