JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
Scottish author (1860-1937)
Biography:
James Matthew Barrie was born in Kiriemuir in 1860. He got his start as a writer for the Nottingham Journal after graduating from Edimburgh University. He wrote several plays, such as Ibsens' Ghost (1891), The Little Minister (1897), The Admirable Chrichton (1902), caricature of social hierarchies, and his most memorable work, Peter Pan or the boy who would never grow up, in 1904, recalling children's imagination.
Barrie's home was very close to Kensington Gardens (London) and it was there that he first met the Llewellyn Davies boys - George, Jack and Peter, to whom he would tell stories. One of these stories was about the youngest boy, Peter, who would one day fly away to Kensington Gardens so that he might be a boy forever. When children died, Peter would take them on a journey to a place called Never Never Land. When George heard the story, he said that "dying must be an awfully big adventure!". Barrie wrote the words down. They would later became the most famous words spoken in Peter Pan.
Barrie was given the Freedom of the City of Edimburgh in 1929.
James Matthew Barrie, author of illustrated works:
Peter Pan and Wendy, illustrated by Marie Lucie Attwell, Hadder and Stoughton, 1921.
Peter Pan, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, Flammarion, 1991.
Peter Pan, illustrated by Thea Kliros, Dover Children's Thrift Classics, 1995.
Critical analysis on Barrie:
F. Rivière, J.M. Barrie, l'enfant qui ne voulait pas grandir, Calmann-Lévy, 1992.