J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin - 1979 with a new introduction by the author in the 2003 Yale University Press Edition

J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin - 1979 with a new introduction by the author in the 2003 Yale University Press Edition

Andrew Birkin is recognized as the world's leading authority on J. M. Barrie.  

James Mathew Barrie

May 6, 1860 - Kirremuir, UK

1897 - Barrie meets the Llewelyn Davis family.  The Llewelyn Davies family played an important part in Barrie's literary and personal life, consisting of Arthur (1863–1907), Sylvia (1866–1910) and their five sons: George (1893–1915), John (Jack) (1894–1959), Peter (1897–1960), Michael (1900–1921) and Nicholas (Nico) (1903–1980).

December 27, 1904 - Peter Pan first staged, in The Duke of York’s Theater in London.  Gerald du Maurier  played Captain Hook (he was the father of Daphne du Maurier and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davis.). Peter Pan was played by Nina Boucicault,a star of the London Stage.  The play was a great success, staged over and over.  From this the already successful Barrie became set for life and world famous.

June 19. 2937 - London

1953 - I first encounter Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, Wendy and the Lost Boys watching the Disney cartoon version of Peter Pan.  (It is on YouTube).

J. M. Barrie created a character known the world over.  If you describe a man as a "Peter Pan" it means he is really still a little boy under his facade.  

Flash back to 1954 in America.  There are only three tv channels, color programs still rare.  The biggest TV event of the week for me was Walt Disney World, Sunday nights at Eight PM on the ABC network.  It is here I first saw the cartoon version of Peter Pan.  Tinkerbell became a trademark for the program. Now sixty five years later I learn the back story behind the inspiration for Peter Pan.  Birkin goes into lots of fascinating details about the original staging of the play.  A big challenge was getting Peter to fly.  Tinkerbell was treated as a ball of moving light.  Stage settings and custom design were a crucial factor in making the transition from the house in London to Neverland.  Birkin goes into lots of detail on these matters.

In the cartoon. Captain Hook is played strictly for laughs. In the first stage version he was meant to be a kind of tragic figure, a highly cultured man somehow not able to operate in normal society but not in place among the pirate crew.  He was played by England's most gifted actor.

Much of J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter is devoted to detailing Barrie's relationship to a family with five sons, the Llewelyn Davis family.  Barrie was married, a marriage portrayed by Birkin as a strange one, he had no children.  One day while walking in Kensington Park in London he met George and Jack out with their Nanny, they became He becomes close through repeated encounters in the park.  My chsnce a few months later he meets their mother, Sylvia Davis at a Christmas party.  .  She and the five boys become close with Barrie, spending lots of time together.  This relationship will be the most important one in his life.  It was also a great blessing to the Davis Family.

In 1907 when Arthur Davis, father of the boys dies "Uncle Jim" becomes even closer.  He provides significant financial help to the family.  He assumes the role of guardian. He had no ulterior motive at all.  

Barrie had lots of well known literary friends and Birkin drops some fascinating tidbits.  Barrie had nonsexual crushes on various actresses and he used his influence to get them parts.  I learned a lot about the theatrical world from J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter.

Barrie comes strongly through as a very good person.  

Author Bio

Andrew Birkin was born in London in December 1945, the son of naval commander David Birkin and the actress Judy Campbell, and is the brother of actress Jane Birkin. At the age of 16 he left school to work as a messenger at 20th Century Fox’s London office. He began work as a production runner on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1965, but soon became a location scout. By the summer of 1966 Kubrick had promoted him to Assistant Director on Special Effects; later he shot the second unit psychedelic sequences over Scotland, and in 1967 supervised the shooting of the Dawn of Man front projection plates in the Namib Desert. In1968, Kubrick again engaged him as assistant director on his unmade epic of Napoleon.

After a brief stint working for the Beatles, Birkin began writing scripts for both film and television, including The Pied Piper (1970) for Jacques Demy, Flame (1972) for the rock band Slade ( which won the Mojo Vision Award in 2007!), and Inside the Third Reich (1973) which involved a year’s collaboration with Albert Speer. Having worked on an adaptation of Peter Pan for NBC in 1975, Birkin conceived The Lost Boys (1978), a trilogy of films for the BBC about Peter Pan’s creator J M Barrie, which won him awards from the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain and the Royal Television Society. In 1980, Birkin won a BAFTA award and an Oscar nomination for his short film Sredni Vashtar, which he also produced and directed. In 1984 he wrote the shooting script for The Name of the Rose, and in 1988 wrote and directed Burning Secret, which won two awards at the 1989 Venice Film Festival, as well as the Young Jury prize for Best Film at the Brussels Film Festival. In 1993, Birkin wrote and directed The Cement Garden, for which he was awarded the Silver Bear as best director at the Berlin Film Festival. In 1998 he collaborated with Luc Besson on the script of The Messenger: Joan of Arc, and in 2004 wrote the screenplay for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Andrew Birkin is considered to be the world’s expert on J M Barrie, having written the definitive biography J M Barrie & the Lost Boys (Yale University Press) in 1978, which has remained in print for 30 years. He has 3 sons: David, an artist; Anno, a poet and musician who was killed in 2001 aged 20; and Ned, with whom he is currently working on a script about America’s entry into World War One. He lives in Wales with his artist wife Karen.

I really enjoyed this book. I totally endorse this wonderful biography of a lovely man.

Plus the cover is very beautiful!

Barrie donated in 1928 all future royalties from Peter Pan to The Great Ormand Street Children's Hospital in London.

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