J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie


Sir James Matthew Barry, 1st Baronet, (May 9, 1860 - June 19, 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright who was best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the boys Llewelyn Davis, who inspired him to write about a boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barry’s adult novel “Little White Bird”) and then writes “Peter Pan” or “The Boy Who I wouldn’t. ” Grow Up, a "fairy tale play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy, who has adventures in the fantastic setting of Neverland. Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan eclipsed his other work and is credited with popularizing the name Wendy. Barry unofficially adopted the Davis boys after the death of their parents. On June 14, 1913, George V made the Baronet a baronet and was awarded the Order of Merit for Christmas in 1922. Before his death, he transferred the rights to Peter Pan's work to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London, which continues to use them. James Matthew Barry was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, into a conservative Calvinist family. His father, David Barry, was a modestly successful weaver. His mother Margaret Ogilvy took over the duties of the deceased mother at the age of eight. Barry was the ninth child out of ten (two of whom died before his birth), and they all studied in at least three rupees, preparing for a possible professional career. He was a small child and attracted attention by telling stories. According to his 1934 passport, he grew to 5 feet 1 1/2 inches (161 cm). When he was 6 years old, older brother Barry David (his mother’s beloved) died the day before his 14th birthday in an ice-skating accident. This left his mother devastated, and Barry tried to take David's place in his mother's attention, even wearing David's clothes and whistling like him. One day, Barry entered her room and heard her say, “Is that you?” “I thought it was a dead boy she was talking to,” wrote Barry in his biographical report about his mother Margaret Ogilvy (1896), and I said in a lonely voice: “No, it's not him,” it's just me. “Mother Barry was comforted in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never grow up, and never abandon her. In the end, Barry and his mother entertained each other with tales of her short childhood and books such as Robinson Crusoe, the works of Scottish Walter Scott, and Pilgrimage Progress.