Jane Annie: Or, The Good Conduct Prize. A Comic Opera in Two Acts

By J. M. Barrie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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: Stage Door
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787373839

J. M. Barrie

J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie (1860--1937) was a novelist and playwright born and educated in Scotland. After moving to London, he authored several successful novels and plays. While there, Barrie befriended the Llewelyn Davies family and its five boys, and it was this friendship that inspired him to write about a boy with magical abilities, first in his adult novel The Little White Bird and then later in Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 play. Now an iconic character of children's literature, Peter Pan first appeared in book form in the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, about the whimsical adventures of the eternal boy who could fly and his ordinary friend Wendy Darling.

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Jane Annie by J. M Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle

Or, The Good Conduct Prize

A Comic Opera in Two Acts with music composed by Ernest Ford

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.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22nd May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1876 - 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh following which he was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast in 1881.  Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 (£700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel The Mystery of Cloomber. Although he continued to study and practice medicine his career was now firmly set as a writer.  And thereafter great works continued to pour out of him.

Index of Contents

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SCENE

ACTS

TIME

ACT I

SCENE. – First floor of the Ladies’ Seminary.

ACT II

SCENE.―A LADIES’ GOLF GREEN NEAR THE SEMINARY.

J. M. BARRIE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

J. M. BARRIE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A Proctor

Sim [Bulldog]

Greg [Bulldog]

Tom [a Press Student]

Jack [a Warrior]

Caddie [a Page]

Miss Sims [a Schoolmistress]

Jane Annie [a Good Girl]

Bab [a Bad Girl]

Milly [an Average Girl]

Rose [an Average Girl]

Meg [an Average Girl]

Maud [an Average Girl]

Schoolgirls, Press Students, and Lancers.

SCENE

Obviously laid round the corner from a certain English University Town.

ACTS

Jane Annie Comic Opera Act I.

First Floor of a Seminary for the Little Things that grow into Women.

Jane Annie Comic Opera Act II.

A Ladies’ Golf Green near the Seminary.

TIME

The Present.

One Night elapses between the Acts.

The Opera produced under the Stage Direction of Mr. Charles Harris and the Musical Direction of Mr. Francois Cellier.

ACT I

SCENE. – First floor of the Ladies’ Seminary.

The GIRLS are exchanging their last confidences for the night. Enter CADDIE with their candles.

CHORUS OF GIRLS

Good-night! Good-night!

The hour is late;

Though eyes are bright,

No longer wait!

Though clear the head,

Though wit may shine,

To bed! To bed!

It’s nearly nine!

[Dining-room clock strikes.

MILLY

Now the last faint tint has faded.

ALL

Good-night! Good-night!

MILLY

And the west in gloom is shaded.

ALL

Good-night! Good-night!

MILLY

See the moon her vigil keeping.

ALL

Good-night! Good-night!

MILLY

Torpor o’er the earth is creeping

ALL

Good-night! Good-night!

Drawing-room clock strikes.

ALL

Good-night! Good-night!

A-talking thus,

Though eyes are bright,

Is not for us.

The eve is past,

The shadows fall,

And so at last

Good-night to all.

[All retire except CADDIE, who is roused from a profound reverie by the mis-behaviour of the clock. He makes short work of it. Exit CADDIE

[There is a knock at the door, and the GIRLS reappear.

MEG

It was the front door!

MILLY

Who can be calling at such a fearsomely late hour as nine o’clock?

ROSE

Why doesn’t some one peep down the stairs.

[BAB runs downstairs.

MAUD

That bold Bab has gone. Miss Sims will catch her.

MILLY

Oh! I can see.

[Looks over staircase.]

ALL

Well?

MILLY

A man!

ROSE

At last!

MILLY

Bald!

ROSE

The wretch!

MILLY

He has two other men with him.

MEG

Two! Girls, let us go and do our hair this instant.

MILLY

They are shewn into Miss Sims’s private room. Ah!

MAUD

What?

MILLY

The door is shut.

ROSE

What a shame!

MEG

What is Bab doing all this time?

MILLY

She has her ear at the keyhole.

MAUD

Dear girl!

MILLY

She shakes her fist at the keyhole.

ALL

Why?

MILLY

I don’t know.

[BAB comes upstairs.

ROSE

Bab, why did you shake your fist at the keyhole?

BAB

Because it is stuffed with paper.

ALL

Oh!

BAB

Yes, stuffed. How mean of Miss Sims. She might surely have trusted to our honour not to look.

MILLY

Thank goodness, the holidays begin the day after to-morrow.

BAB

But a great deal may happen before