The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) (The Annotated Books)

by J. M. Barrie

  Maude Adams. In Phyllis Robbins, Maude Adams: An Intimate Portrait. New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1956. P. 94.

  Of all the plays that were trusted to my care, I loved Chantecler best, and then came Peter Pan. It was not only that Peter was the most delightful of all the plays, but it opened a new world to me, the beautiful world of children. My childhood and girlhood had been spent with older people, and children had always been rather terrifying to me. When one met the eyes of the little things, it was like facing the Day of Judgment. Children remained an enigma to me until, when I was a woman grown, Peter gave me open sesame; for whether I understood children or not, they understood Peter.

  “J. M. Barrie in His Most Fantastic Mood—Maude Adams in Perfect Sympathy with Its Gladsome Text.” New York Times, November 12, 1905.

  Of all the gladsome Barrie fantasies, none has seemed so truly satisfying, so fully wholesome, so tenderly appealing as Peter Pan. He knows the heart of mankind, he understands its workings, and burrows deep in the mentalities of his subjects. No man could write a Peter Pan who in himself was lacking in the qualities which make the heart of a child such a wondrously beautiful thing.

  Mark Twain. “Letter to Maude Adams.” In Phyllis Robbins, Maude Adams: An Intimate Portrait. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1956. P. 92.

  It is my belief that Peter Pan is a great and refining and uplifting benefaction to this sordid and money-mad age; and that the next best play on the board is a long way behind it as long as you play Peter.

  Mark Twain. “Samuel Clemens Interviews the Famous Humorist Mark Twain.” Seattle Star, November 30, 1905.

  “[Peter Pan] breaks all the rules of real life drama but preserves intact all the rules of fairyland, and the result is altogether contenting to the spirit.”

  George Orwell. “Such, Such Were the Joys . . .” A Collection of Essays. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970. P. 33.

  There never was, I suppose, in the history of the world a time when the sheer vulgar fatness of wealth, without any kind of aristocratic elegance to redeem it, was so obtrusive as in those years before 1914. It was the age . . . of The Merry Widow, Saki’s novels, Peter Pan and Where the Rainbow Ends, the age when people talked about chocs and cigs and ripping and topping and heavenly. . . . From the whole decade before 1914, there seems to breathe forth a smell of the more vulgar, un-grown-up kinds of luxury, a smell of brilliantine and crème de menthe and soft-centred chocolates—an atmosphere, as it were, of eating everlasting strawberry ices on green lawns to the tune of the Eton Boating Song.

  Matthew White Jr. “Stage-Door Worship for Maude Adams.” The Scrap Book, March 3, 1907: 473.

  I heard the other day of a New York seamstress who has seen the play forty-seven times, and who would leave any up-town engagement in the evening at half past ten and go down to the Empire Theater, merely to see Miss Adams walk across the pavement to her carriage. On one happy occasion the actress threw some flowers to the eager admirers . . . and the seamstress was fortunate enough to catch them. Palpitating with joy, she pressed forward to the window in the carriage. In the brief moment before the horses started, she found time to express her thanks, to tell Miss Adams how many times she had seen Peter Pan, and to give her address.

  A day or two later the seamstress received an autographed picture from her idol. After that all her spare moments were spent in haunting Miss Adams’ residence, when not making part of the stage-door crowd. Among the latter she became acquainted with the little daughter of a cook. The child had seen Peter Pan on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, and was saving every penny to go again.

  The seamstress next made a gorgeous pin-cushion, and, watching her chance, one afternoon sprang forward and presented it to Miss Adams just before she entered her home. The actress remembered her, invited her in, and on the ensuing conversation learned about the cook’s child. Before her caller left, Miss Adams gave her a pass for two, in order that she might take the little girl to the theater. But on the way home, the seamstress said to herself: “There’s the cook, the child’s mother. She has never seen Peter Pan, and I have seen it nearly fifty times. I’ll give the other ticket to her!”

  Which she did.

  Robert Louis Stevenson. In J. M. Barrie: Glamour of Twilight. Edinburgh: Ramsay Head Press, 1976. P. 9.

  Letter to Henry James: “Barrie is a beauty. The Little Minister and The Window in Thrums, eh? Stuff in that young man; but he must see and not to be too funny. Genius in him, but there’s a journalist at his elbow—there’s the risk.”

  Letter to J. M. Barrie: “I have no such glamour of twilight in my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins to look like you are a genius.”

  Pamela Maude. Worlds Away. London: John Baker, 1964. Pp. 137 and 144.

  He was a tiny man, and he had a pale face and large eyes with shadows around them. . . . Our parents called him “Jimmy.” He was unlike anyone we had ever met, or would meet in the future. He looked fragile, but he was strong when he wrestled with Porthos, his St. Bernard dog. . . . In the evening, when the strange morning light had begun to change, Mr. Barrie held out a hand to each of us in silence, and we slipped our own into his and walked, still silently, into the beech-wood. We shuffled our feet through leaves and listened, with Mr. Barrie, for sudden sound, made by birds and rabbits. One evening we saw a pea-pod lying in the hollow of a great tree-trunk, and we brought it to Mr. Barrie. . . . There, inside, was a tiny letter, folded inside the pod, that a fairy had written. Mr. Barrie said he could read fairy writing and read it to us. We received several more, in pea-pods, before the end of our visit.

  E. V. Lucas. Reading, Writing and Remembering: A Literary Record. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932. P. 185.

  Barrie is at his best with children; in fact, he becomes a child himself, bringing to that role endless resources of fantasy, inventiveness and fun. His letters to children are a delight, and should they have been preserved—as I hope, but as he, if he really holds that all correspondence should be destroyed (a point of view in which I intensely disagree with him), is far from wishing—an entrancing book would result.

  Anonymous. Times Literary Supplement, June 26, 1937, pp. 469–70.

  It means that Barrie had the power which is much greater than that of story-telling of compelling successive generations to invent his story afresh, to tell it to themselves and in their own terms—that is to say, he was able not merely to instruct or entertain but to impregnate the collective mind of his audience. And if he did, indeed, possess this power, which is precisely the power of the great fairy-tales, criticism may as well throw its pen away, for then he is immortal by election and there is no more to be said about it.

  Jack Gould. “Television Neverland.” New York Times, March 8, 1955.

  Surely there must have been a trace of fairy dust from coast to coast this morning. Last night’s television presentation of Mary Martin as Peter Pan was a joy. Who could say whether the TV premiere was more wondrous than the Broadway opening? It is unimportant . . . for in millions of homes entire families were transported to Neverland in the happiest of circumstances.

  Mary Martin. My Heart Belongs. New York: Quill, 1984. Pp. 11 and 202.

  Of all the exciting shows, the marvelous moments, the happy memories of what now seems a long, long life, Peter and Never Land loom largest in my mind. Partly because I love Peter so, partly because everyone else in the world loves Peter so. Mostly, I think, because Never Land is the way I would like real life to be: timeless, free, mischievous, filled with gaiety, tenderness and magic. . . .

  I cannot even remember a day when I didn’t want to be Peter. When I was a child I was sure I could fly. In my dreams I often did, and it was always the same: I ran, raised my arms like a great bird, soared into the sky, flew.

  J. R. R. Tolkien. “On Fairy-Stories.” The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966. Pp. 44–45.

  The process of growing older is not necessarily allied to growing wickeder, though the two do often happen tog
ether. Children are meant to grow up, and not to become Peter Pans. Not to lose innocence and wonder, but to proceed on the appointed journey: that journey upon which it is certainly not better to travel hopefully than to arrive, though we must travel hopefully if we are to arrive. But it is one of the lessons of fairie-stories (if we can speak of the lessons of things that do not lecture) that on callow, lumpish, and selfish youth peril, sorrow, and the shadow of death can bestow dignity, and even sometimes wisdom.

  Susanne K. Langer. Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. P. 318.

  I, too, remember vividly to this day the terrible shock of such a recall to actuality: as a young child I saw Maude Adams in Peter Pan. It was my first visit to the theater, and the illusion was absolute and overwhelming, like something supernatural. At the highest point of the action (Tinker Bell had drunk Peter’s poisoned medicine to save him from doing so, and was dying) Peter turned to the spectators and asked them to attest their belief in fairies. Instantly the illusion was gone; there were hundreds of children, sitting in rows, clapping and even calling, while Miss Adams, dressed up as Peter Pan, spoke to us like a teacher coaching us in a play in which she herself was taking the title role. I did not understand, of course, what had happened; but an acute misery obliterated the rest of the scene, and was not entirely dispelled until the curtain rose on a new set.

  Patrick Braybrook. J. M. Barrie: A Study in Fairies and Mortals. New York: Haskell House, 1971. P. 122.

  I do not think that most children really understand the true significance of Peter Pan, they look upon it as a delightful fairy story, about a boy who refuses to grow up and has delightful adventures and hairbreadth escapes. It is for the older folk to see the symbolism and philosophy that lies behind, the pathos of Peter, the utter sadness of the Never, Never Land. . . . And so every Christmas in the heart of London, the children of a West End theatre clap to proclaim that they believe in fairies. And perhaps almost unconsciously some of their parents clap also. It is the secret of the charm of Peter Pan, the beautiful child’s world of the fairy, so far removed from the cold, commercial and bitter world that has long lost fairyland because it has long lost its childlike innocence.

  Dan Kiley. The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1983. Pp. 22–24.

  We all remember the compelling story of happy-go-lucky Peter Pan, right? . . . When we allow Peter Pan to touch our heart, our soul is nourished by the fountain of youth.

  But how many people realize that there is another side to the classic character created by J. M. Barrie? . . . A careful and thoughtful reading of Barrie’s original play opened my eyes to a chilling reality. As much as I want to believe the contrary, Peter Pan was a very sad young man. . . . For all his gaiety, he was a deeply troubled boy living in an even more troubling time. He was caught in the abyss between the man he didn’t want to become and the boy he could no longer be. . . . With increasing frequency, the little-known side of the famous Pan has captured the heart and soul of a significant segment of our children. If they’re not freed, they will endure endless emotional and social turmoil. I feel certain that Peter wouldn’t mind if I use his story to help others. In fact, I’m not sure he would even care.

  Beryl Bainbridge. An Awfully Big Adventure. London: Duckworth, 1989. P. 99.

  “There are numerous books on the meaning behind this particular play,” Meredith said. “I’ve read most of them and am of the opinion that they do the author a disservice. I’m not qualified to judge whether the grief his mother felt on the death of his elder brother had an adverse effect on Mr. Barrie’s emotional development, nor do I care one way or the other. We all have our crosses to bear. Sufficient to say that I regard the play as pure make-believe. I don’t want any truck with symbolic interpretations.”

  Dan Simmons. The Fall of Hyperion. New York: Random House, 1991. P. 205.

  When Brawne Lamnia had been a child, her father a senator and their home relocated, however briefly, from Lusus to the wooded wonders of Tau Ceti Center’s Administrative Residential Complex, she had seen the ancient flatfilm Walt Disney animation of Peter Pan. After seeing the animation, she had read the book, and both had captured her heart.

  For months, the five-standard-year-old girl had waited for Peter Pan to arrive one night and take her away. She had left notes pointing the way to her bedroom under the shingled dormer. She had left the house while her parents slept and lain on the soft grass of the Deer Park lawns . . . and dreaming of the boy from Neverland who would some night soon take her away with him, flying toward the second star to the right, straight on till morning. She would be his companion, the mother to the lost boys, fellow nemesis to the evil Hook, and most of all, Peter’s new Wendy . . . the new child-friend to the child who would not grow old.

  Kay Redfield Jamison. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. New York: Vintage, 1997. P. 95.

  In rare instances, lithium causes problems of visual accommodation, which can, in turn, lead to a form of blurred vision. It can also impair concentration and attention span and affect memory. Reading, which had been at the heart of my intellectual and emotional existence, was suddenly beyond my grasp. . . . I found that children’s books, which, in addition to being shorter than books written for adults, also had larger print, were relatively accessible to me, and I read over and over again the classics of childhood—Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Charlotte’s Web, Huckleberry Finn, the Oz books, Doctor Dolittle—that had once opened up such unforgettable worlds to me. Now they gave me a second chance, a second win of pleasure and beauty.

  Fanny Howe. “Fairies.” In Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales. Ed. Kate Bernheimer. New York: Random House, Anchor Books, 1998. P. 184.

  The mad applause for Tinker Bell in the middle of the performance of Peter Pan is like a reenactment of the storming of the Winter Palace. It’s a protection of children’s rights to believe in something other than what oppressive reason allows. And that is bewilderment. A society for the protection of fairies would really be a society for the protection of bewilderment.

  Mary Gaitskill. Two Girls Fat and Thin. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. P. 81.

  At night on Sunday, she would read me books like My Father’s Dragon, Little Witch, and Peter Pan. When she read Peter Pan, I stopped drawing pictures of heaven and began drawing Never-Never land. Never-Never Land was pink and blue and green, it had trees with homes inside them, cubby holes and hiding places, tiny women in gauze robes and flying children with rapiers in their elegant hands. Its very name made me feel a sadness like a big beautiful blanket I could wrap around myself. I tried to believe that Peter Pan might really come one night and fly me away; I was too old to believe this and I knew it, but I forced the bright polka-dotted canopy of this belief over my unhappy knowledge. And I tried to conform the suburban world around me to the world of Victorian London described in the book—which resulted in a jarring sensation each time I was forced to look at my true surroundings.

  Rosemarie Skaine. The Cuban Family: Custom and Change in an Era of Hardship. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003. P. 102.

  Operation Pedro Pan was conceived when Miami relatives could not support 15 year old Pedro Menendez. A benefactor took Pedro to the Catholic Welfare Bureau (CWB), later renamed Catholic Charities. . . . Mr. James Baker and members of the American Chamber of Commerce of Havana . . . wanted to provide shelter and education for children who did not have relatives or friends in the United States. . . . Over 14,000 young people of Cuba migrated to the United States in the early 1960s as a part of “Operation Pedro Pan.” Some children never saw their families again.

  L. T. Stanley. “The Spirit of Pantomime.” Queen, November 13, 1956.

  Should you find yourself at Peter Pan this Christmas, the unanimous affirmative to “Do you believe in fairies?” will show you how the children are entering into the spirit of entertainment. . . . It is refreshing to capture for an hour or so o
ur damaged sense of wonder. Of all the comforts that nature can offer, one of the loveliest and most comforting is the unrestrained laughter of children.

  The Fugitive. Dir. Andrew Davis, 1993.

  COSMO RENFRO: What happened? Where’d he go?

  DEPUTY MARSHAL SAMUEL GERARD: The guy did a Peter Pan right off of this dam, right here.

  COSMO RENFRO: What?

  DEPUTY MARSHAL SAMUEL GERARD: Yeah. BOOM!

  Susan Pawick, Flying in Place. New York: Tor Books, 2005. P. 71.

  “It sounds scary,” Ginny said, “I don’t remember that one. Mom didn’t read me scary stories.”

  “You’re kidding! Peter Pan’s not scary, with Hook and the crocodile and nasty little Tinkerbell trying to get Wendy shot down like a bird?”

  Ginny shook her head again. “No. I always knew it would come out all right in the end. Mom told me so the first time she read it to me.”

  “She never told me that. Just let me be terrified through the whole thing.”

  Douglas E. Winter. Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Pp.15–16.

  Although Clive adored Joan’s riverbank tales, his first and true love among the books she read to him was Peter Pan. (“It’s the book I want to be buried with,” he once told me.)

  Although he was entertained by other classic children’s books, none seemed to connect with him. . . . “Nothing could compare with Peter. Because he was just everything I wanted to be. He could fly. He didn’t belong to anybody. He was his own boy. And as a child I think you want that so much. All children want to be their own person, right? . . . I wanted to open the nursery windows and be gone. And the price Peter pays for that freedom didn’t seem to me to be too bad a price at the age of eight. But I would always cry at the end of the book. I was acutely aware of how sad the book was. And I never quite worked that out.