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Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up is a play written by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860–1937), and first presented on the stage at the Duke of York's Theatre on 27th December 1904. In 1911, Barrie adapted the play into a book, Peter Pan and Wendy. It is a story of a mischievous little boy who spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the island of Neverland as leader of the Lost Boys. The story features some fantastical elements, one of them being that Peter has the ability to fly, and his friends include a fairy named Tinker Bell. In addition, a crocodile that has swallowed a ticking clock stalks the pirate leader, Captain Hook
The play and the novel follow the same story but in the novel, Barrie includes an additional scene which was not in the play, but which he created for the stage under the title An Afterthought. In this scene, Peter returns to Wendy's house, not realizing that more than twenty years have passed since he took Wendy, John and Michael to Neverland, and that Wendy is now a married woman with a daughter, Jane. Confronted with the news, he breaks down and cries. Wendy leaves the room to try to think, and Peter's sobs awaken Jane, who asks him to take her with him to Neverland and to let her be his new mother. Peter joyfully accepts, and the two fly off together with Wendy sorrowfully looking off after them. Peter will now return for Jane once a year as he once promised to return for Wendy. |
Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with whom he had forged a special relationship. When Mrs. Llewelyn Davies died, Barrie was named as co-guardian of the boys and unofficially adopted them.
The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys, and Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands
Peter Pan first appeared in print in a 1902 book called The Little White Bird, a fictionalised version of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children, and was then used in a very successful stage play.
A new statue of Peter Pan was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital to celebrate J.M. Barrie's generous gift of the copyright. Unveiled in 2000, the bronze by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor shows Peter blowing fairy dust over the passing children
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