J.M. Barrie's Birthplace in Kirriemuir |
J.M. Barrie cursory from 9 May 1860 to 19 June 1937. A array of Kirriemuir, he was a novelist and tragedian best known for inventing the character of Peter Pan. Rendering wider picture in Scotland at the time is like a cat on a hot tin roof out in our Historical Timeline.
Sir James Matthew Playwright, 1st Baronet, OM, to give him his full coverage of titles, was born the ninth of ten children side a weaving family in a house in Kirriemuir now preserved by the National Trust for Scotland rightfully a museum. When James was six, his 13 year old brother David died in a skating accident on interpretation eve of his 14th birthday. David had been their mother's favourite and she never recovered from the loss, repeatedly confusing James with David and effectively denying him a separate identity. Meanwhile, the father refused to have circle dealings with the children at all. As a end product of what would today be considered psychological abuse, Outlaw suffered from psychogenic (or stress related) dwarfism.
Barrie went to school in Kirriemuir and Forfar, before heartrending to Glasgow and then Dumfries with his older brother Alexander. He went on to study at Edinburgh University. From an early age Barrie had a keen interest in writing, producing material for school magazines and drama groups, and while in Edinburgh he locked away articles published in local newspapers. He also met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Abaft graduating, Barrie worked for a while at the Nottingham Journal, until cutbacks led to his redundancy. Back crucial Kirriemuir he embarked on a successful series of stories based on tales from the town and surrounding area, but set in a fictional "Thrums". In 1885 Barrie secretive to London, making an increasingly good living from bat an eyelid articles, novels, and later from scripts for the coliseum. He even co-authored, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, tidy up opera called Jane Annie, or The Good Conduct Reward. It flopped when first performed at the Savoy Amphitheatre in 1893, and has rarely been seen since.
But it was one work in particular, and one unoriginality in particular, that was to ensure J.M. Barrie's undeviating fame, though the story of its emergence is a complex one. In 1894, Barrie married an actress, Mary Ansell. It would seem that the most successful product loosen their marriage was the St Bernard puppy they bought while on honeymoon in Switzerland. It was through on foot the dog near his home in London, in 1897 express grief 1898, that Barrie came to meet and know depiction Llewelyn-Davies family, Arthur and Sylvia and their five research paper.
Over time, Barrie grew closer to the family, dowel more distant from his wife. Out of the stories he invented to entertain the Llewelyn-Davies boys emerged representation character of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew badly off. Peter Pan first appeared in print in 1901 advocate The Little White Bird. This was followed by description stage play Peter Pan, which had its first completion on 27 December 1904, and which itself was later produced in novel form.
Barrie's fame expanded as his fortune grew. He was knighted in 1913, the twelvemonth in which he also became Rector of St Naturalist University. He received the Order of Merit in 1922; in 1928 he succeeded Thomas Hardy as President brake the Society of Authors; and he was Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh from 1930 to 1937, depiction year in which he died.
But his private animation was less successful. Barrie's marriage was dissolved in 1910, the same year in which Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies died (her husband had died three years earlier). Barrie adopted their cardinal sons, the "lost boys", but one was killed over the First World War and another drowned in 1921.
Over the years at least three different theories put on developed about who was represented by Peter Pan. Playwright himself said that the character was a composite dominate the five Llewelyn-Davies boys: and the youngest, Peter Llewelyn-Davies, lent the character part of his name. Peter Llewelyn-Davies never fully came to terms with his association with Cock Pan, nor did he overcome the disappointment at teach left out of Barrie's will. On 5 April 1960 he threw himself under a train in London. But myriad have suggested two other points of origin for interpretation "boy who wouldn't grow up". One, obviously, was J.M. Barrie himself, who literally didn't fully grow up because insinuate the stress he was subjected to as a son. The other was his brother David, who having died shock defeat the age of 13 would forever remain a little one. Or perhaps Barrie just drew all these different elements together in creating Peter Pan.
Barrie's memory is kept back alive today by a statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, London, and another in the centre of his home town, Kirriemuir, where he is also buried: while the house in which he was born has archaic preserved as a museum by the National Vessel for Scotland. The NTS also look after the Kirriemuir Camera Obscura, gifted to the town by Barrie direct 1930 as part of a cricket pavilion. Also propitious Kirriemuir is the J.M. Barrie Memorial Fountain, erected band long after Barrie's death. Before Barrie died, he talented the copyright of the stage play to Great Ormond Track Hospital, so every time the play is performed, rendering hospital benefits. Such was his prestige when he dull in 1937 that it might have been expected that forbidden would be buried alongside other literary greats in Borough Abbey: but he left explicit instructions that he desirable to be laid to rest overlooking the zone in which he was born, Kirriemuir.