J.M. Barrie Biography

James Barrie was was born in May of 1860, his father, David, was a middle class weaver, little else is generally mentioned of him. He seems to have been closest to his mother, she was mother to ten children of whom James was the ninth, two had died before he was born. Before this she had been caretaker of her own childhood household after her mother when she was eight. From all accounts she was hard working and affectionate, she told James stories of her childhood as well as Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrims Progress. She was probably the main basis of the character Wendy.

When he was six, his older brother David died in an ice skating accident two days before his fourteenth birthday. His mother was devestated, but supposedly was comforted by the thought that he would "remain a boy forevever". This had a signifigant influence on James, who continued to look upto him, idolizing to his older brother after his death; he began wearing his dead brothers brothers oversized clothes, frightening his mother. In his later writings he suggest that children who die before their fourteenth birthday remain pure and innocent forever.

Starting at age eight he was sent to attend several academies, here he became a constant reader, his favorite authors at the time were James fenimore Cooper and Robert Michael Ballantyne. He wanted to begin a career as a write after leaving these academies, but gave way to his families ambition that he attend Edinburgh University, in hopes that he would become a minister. He felt supressed or at least disinterested by adult life, he once described a nightmare he had of waking up in a bed, married. Fortunately his early writings were enough of a success to allow him to make a living and continue writing, until he became firmly established as a playwrite. His early novels were tales of childhood and Scotland, along with the tale of Tom, a young man who clings to his childhood fantasie and becomes materially and socially ruined.

Through some series of events he became married to Mary Ansell in 1891, she was an actress and met Barrie when she was cast as the lead in one of his early plays. He seems to have been fond of her, but the marriage detiorated. Barrie spent more time in the park where he befriended several of the younger patrons, participating in and recording childrens games. The closest of these friendships was with the Llewellyn Davie boys; Peter, George, Michael, John, and Nicholas, and their parents, Arthur and Sylvia. The boys were the final spark which ignited the character of Peter Pan in his mind. After the death of the boys father he became even closer to the family, taking them to his country house for the summers and giving their mother financial aid. His marriage with Mary was at this point destroyed, she had become involved with an acquantance of Barrie's and he granted her a divorce. Soon after Mrs. Llewelyn became very ill and died; Barrie claimed they had been engaged to be married, this was never confirmed.

Barrie became the godfather of the boys; , and he was able to support the boys through college. The boys grew up, though they were not allowed happy lives. George was shot and killed in World War I, Michael was drowned while swimming his first year at Oxford, Peter commited suicide in 1959. Barrie died of pneumonia in 1937, he left the rights and royalties of Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. Though the tabloids of the victorian society of he tried to escape continued to suggest that that he was a pedophile, Peter Pan had caste him as a permanent figure in english literature; he was made a baronet in 1913, and admitted into the British Order of Merit in 1922.