Better Dead: "Let no one who loves be unhappy"

By J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus the ninth of ten children on May 9th, 1860. From early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882. His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "liked that Scotch thing" in Barrie’s short stories about his mother’s early life. They also served as the basis for his first novels. Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, was only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts. Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. Barrie proposed and they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894. By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children. The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny in London's Kensington Gardens. In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton. The character of "Peter Pan" first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904. Peter Pan would overshadow everything written during his career. He continued to write for the rest of his life contributing many other fine and important works. Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Horse's Mouth
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787373693

J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright. Born in Kirriemuir, Barrie was raised in a strict Calvinist family. At the age of six, he lost his brother David to an ice-skating accident, a tragedy which left his family devastated and led to a strengthening in Barrie’s relationship with his mother. At school, he developed a passion for reading and acting, forming a drama club with his friends in Glasgow. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, he found work as a journalist for the Nottingham Journal while writing the stories that would become his first novels. The Little White Bird (1902), a blend of fairytale fiction and social commentary, was his first novel to feature the beloved character Peter Pan, who would take the lead in his 1904 play Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, later adapted for a 1911 novel and immortalized in the 1953 Disney animated film. A friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells, Barrie is known for his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, whose young boys were the inspiration for his stories of Peter Pan’s adventures with Wendy, Tinker Bell, and the Lost Boys on the island of Neverland.

Book preview

Better Dead by J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus the ninth of ten children on May 9th, 1860.

From early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882.

His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette liked that Scotch thing in Barrie’s short stories about his mother’s early life. They also served as the basis for his first novels.

Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre.  His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, was only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts.

Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. Barrie proposed and they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894.  By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children.

The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny in London's Kensington Gardens.

In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton.

The character of Peter Pan first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904.

Peter Pan would overshadow everything written during his career.  He continued to write for the rest of his life contributing many other fine and important works.

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.

Index of Contents

CHAPTER I - ENGAGED?   

CHAPTER II - THE S. D. W. S. P.?  

CHAPTER III - THE GREAT SOCIAL QUESTION?   

CHAPTER IV - WOMAN'S RIGHTS?    

CHAPTER V - DYNAMITERS?   

CHAPTER VI - A CELEBRITY AT HOME?  

CHAPTER VII - EXPERIMENTING? 

CHAPTER VIII - A LOST OPPORTUNITY?   

CHAPTER IX - THE ROOT OF THE MATTER?    

CHAPTER X - THE OLD OLD STORY?

J. M. Barrie – A Short Biography

J. M. Barrie – A Concise Bibliography

BETTER DEAD

CHAPTER I

ENGAGED?   

When Andrew Riach went to London, his intention was to become private secretary to a member of the Cabinet.  If time permitted, he proposed writing for the Press.

It might be better if you and Clarrie understood each other, the minister said.

It was their last night together.  They faced each other in the manse-parlour at Wheens, whose low, peeled ceiling had threatened Mr. Eassie at his desk every time he looked up with his pen in his mouth until his wife died, when he ceased to notice things.  The one picture on the walls, an engraving of a boy in velveteen, astride a tree, entitled Boyhood of Bunyan, had started life with him.  The horsehair chairs were not torn, and you did not require to know the sofa before you sat down on it, that day thirty years before, when a chubby minister and his lady walked to the manse between two cart-loads of furniture, trying not to look elated.

Clarrie rose to go, when she heard her name.  The love-light was in her eyes, but Andrew did not open the door for her, for he was a Scotch graduate.  Besides, she might one day be his wife.

The minister's toddy-ladle clinked against his tumbler, but Andrew did not speak.  Clarrie was the girl he generally adored.

As for Clarrie, he said at last, she puts me in an awkward position. How do I know that I love her?

You have known each other a long time, said the minister.

His guest was cleaning his pipe with a hair-pin, that his quick eye had detected on the carpet.

And she is devoted to you, continued Mr. Eassie.

The young man nodded.

What I fear, he said, is that we have known each other too long. Perhaps my feeling for Clarrie is only brotherly―

Hers for you, Andrew, is more than sisterly.

Admitted.  But consider, Mr. Eassie, she has only seen the world in soirées.  Every girl has her day-dreams, and Clarrie has perhaps made a dream of me.  She is impulsive, given to idealisation, and hopelessly illogical.

The minister moved uneasily in his chair.

I have reasoned out her present relation to me, the young man went on, and, the more you reduce it to the usual formulae, the more illogical it becomes.  Clarrie could possibly describe me, but define me―never.  What is our prospect of happiness in these circumstances?

But love― began Mr. Eassie.

Love! exclaimed Andrew.  Is there such a thing?  Reduce it to syllogistic form, and how does it look in Barbara?

For the moment there was almost some expression in his face, and he suffered from a determination of words to the mouth.

Love and logic, Mr. Eassie interposed, are hardly kindred studies.

Is love a study at all? asked Andrew, bitterly.  It is but the trail of idleness.  But all idleness is folly; therefore, love is folly.

Mr. Eassie was not so keen a logician as his guest, but he had age for a major premiss.  He was easy-going rather than a coward; a preacher who, in the pulpit, looked difficulties genially in the face, and passed them by.

Riach had a very long neck.