The Legacy of Neverland - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens: A Magical Adventure in London's Royal Park

By J. M. Barrie

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens reveals the magical life of the boy who wouldn’t grow up when he is yet to meet Wendy Darling. J. M. Barrie’s treasured character embarks on his earliest adventures in this charming children’s novel.

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, is one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature. Long before his escapades with pirates, mermaids, and Lost Boys, he first appeared in our storybooks as a small baby. Escaping from his family home, Peter lives with the birds and fairies in the magical depths of London’s Kensington Gardens. An ever curious and daring child, he explores the fascinating world around him, learning how to fly with his fairy friends. This wondrous tale captures the innocence and imagination of childhood.

First published in 1906, most of the text in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was originally published in J. M. Barrie’s novel The Little White Bird (1902). Over a century later, this magical read is still loved by people of all ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read & Co. Children's
• Release date: Apr 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528798822

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.

Book preview

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The Legacy

of Neverland

PETER PAN IN

KENSINGTON GARDENS

A Magical Adventure

in London's Royal Park

By

J. M. BARRIE

First published in 1902

Copyright © 2023 Read & Co. Children's

This edition is published by Read & Co. Children's,

an imprint of Read & Co.

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

For more information visit

www.readandcobooks.co.uk

Contents

J. M. Barrie

I THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS

II PETER PAN

III THE THRUSH'S NEST

IV LOCK-OUT TIME

V THE LITTLE HOUSE

VI PETER'S GOAT

J. M. Barrie

James Matthew Barrie was born on 9th May 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland.

He was the ninth of ten children (two of whom died before his birth), born to Calvinist parents, David Barrie and Margaret Ogilvy. Barrie was sent to Glasgow Academy at the age of eight, where he was looked after by two of his older siblings, Alexander and Mary, who taught there. He went on to study at the Forfar Academy, and then at Dumfries Academy. He became an avid reader of penny dreadfuls and works by authors such as Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. This love of fiction led Barrie (along with his friends at Dumfries), to form a drama club in which he produced his first play, Bandelero the Bandit.

Barrie's desire to follow a dramatic career was not approved of by his parents, who wished him to go into a profession such as the ministry. However, they arrived at a compromise when he agreed to attend University, but would study literature. He received his M.A. From Edinburgh University in 1882.

After a brief spell as a staff journalist at the Nottingham Journal, Barrie returned to Kirriemuir and began writing stories based on the tales that his mother had told him about the town. He submitted these to the newspaper St. James's Gazette in London, who liked his work. Barrie consequently ended up writing a series, which served as the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1890), and The Little Minister (1891).

Alongside his novels, Barrie began to produce many works for the theatre. His first venture into the medium was a biography of Richard Savage which he co-wrote with H. B. Marriott. This was only performed once and was critically panned. However, his next theatrical work Ibsen's Ghost (or Toole Up-to-Date) (1891), a parody of Henrik Ibsen's dramas Hedda Gabler and Ghosts, was much more favourably received.

It was during his third play that Barrie met his future wife, the young actress, Mary Ansell. The pair were married on 9th July 1894. Unfortunately, Mary had an affair which Barrie learned of in 1909, and the couple later divorced. They had no children together.

Barrie was very well connected in literary circles. One testament to this was his role in founding an amateur cricket team that included members such as: Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, and G. K. Chesterton.

Barrie's lasting legacy to the world was his creation of Peter Pan. This character first appeared in the The White Little Bird, serialised in the United States, and then published in a single volume in the UK in 1902. The work that catapulted his character to become a household name was Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. This was first performed as a play on 27th December 1904, but in 1911 Barrie adapted it into the novel Peter and Wendy.

Interestingly, the name Wendy was not in common use at the time, but his work popularised it. The name was actually inspired by the daughter of friend and poet William Ernest Henley, who called Barrie 'Friendy', but could not pronounce her Rs very well and so it came out as 'Fwendy'.

Upon his death, Barrie left the copyright for Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. He died on 19th June 1937, of pneumonia. Barrie is buried next to his parents and two of his siblings, at Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland.

I

THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS

You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens. They are in London, where the King lives, and I used to take David there nearly every day unless he was looking decidedly flushed. No child has ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that, if you are as small as David, you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep from twelve to one, you could most likely see the whole of them.

The Gardens are bounded on one side by a never-ending line of omnibuses, over which your nurse has such authority that if she holds up her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses with you in safety to the other side. There are more gates to the Gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go in at, and before you go in you speak to the lady with the balloons, who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she may venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one moment, the balloons would lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one, because the old one had let go, and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go, he wished he had been there to see.

The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with millions and hundreds of trees; and first you come to the Figs, but you scorn to loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who are forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so named, according to legend, because they dress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs by David and other heroes, and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal section of the Gardens when