Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a fictional character created by J. M. Barrie, and the name of a stage play, a children's book, and various adaptations of them. The character is a little boy who refuses to grow up, and spends his time having magical adventures.

Background

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, while both were married.

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The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn-Davies, at the time the youngest of the boys, and Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. Mrs. Llewelyn-Davies' death from cancer came within a few years of the death of her husband. Barrie was named as co-guardian of the boys and unofficially adopted them.

Related Topics:
Peter Llewelyn-Davies - Pan

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It has also been suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at the age of thirteen deeply affected their mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, the death was "a catastrophe beyond belief, and one from which she never fully recovered . . . If Margaret Ogilvy drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration."

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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, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered in London on December 27, 1904.

Related Topics:
1902 - Stage play - London - December 27 - 1904

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In 1906, the portion of The Little White Bird which featured Peter Pan was published as the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie then adapted the play into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy (but most often now published simply as Peter Pan).

Related Topics:
1906 - Arthur Rackham - 1911

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There are seven statues of Peter Pan playing a set of pipes, cast from a mold by sculptor George Frampton, following an original commission by Barrie. The statues are in Kensington Gardens in London, in Liverpool, in Brussels, in Camden, New Jersey, in Perth, in Toronto, and in Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Related Topics:
Statue - Kensington Gardens - London - Liverpool - Brussels - Camden - Perth - Toronto - Bowring Park - St. John's, Newfoundland

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