Sir J. M. Barrie

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Standard Name: Barrie, Sir J. M.
Used Form: Sir James Barrie
Used Form: Sir James Matthew Barrie
SJMB began his career in the late nineteenth century as a journalist, then moved to short stories, then novels, then plays. Those of his plays which survive in the repertoire, for professionals or amateurs, all involve departures from actuality, and purposeful suspension of the laws of space and time. Far and away the most famous, the basis of Barrie's continuing fame, is the adult play which became a children's classic, Peter Pan.
Photograph of James Barrie, not yet a baron, by Frederick Hollyer, 1892. Barrie sits, wearing a coat, jacket, and waistcoat, with his head tilted to one side and chin resting on his left hand.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Dedications Sarah Tytler
It was dedicated to J. M. Barrie , who was now famous as the author of Peter Pan.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray, 1911.
prelims
Education Daisy Ashford
In the preface to Daisy's novel, The Young Visiters, J. M. Barrie describes the young DA as a girl who read everything that came her way, including, as the context amply proves, the grown-up...
Employer Lady Cynthia Asquith
Having much enjoyed nursing, LCA did her first day as private secretary to the writer J. M. Barrie , for a promised salary of four or five hundred pounds a year (which, however, proved to...
Family and Intimate relationships Dorothy Brett
DB 's younger sister, Sylvia, later Lady Brooke , born in 1885, is herself of no minor literary significance. She authored numerous works including two autobiographies, romance novels, and short stories, and claimed J. M. Barrie
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
LCA 's other sons, after John, were Michael, born on 25 July 1914 at Sussex Place, and Simon , born on 20 August 1919 (after she had planned on having a girl to be...
Family and Intimate relationships Angela Thirkell
J. M. Barrie was her godfather.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
She had a romantic friendship during the years 1918 and 1919 with Desmond MacCarthy , who was less than ten years her senior and a member of the Bloomsbury group.
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
235ff
MacCarthy, however, then...
Family and Intimate relationships Daphne Du Maurier
DDM 's aunt Sylvia du Maurier (later Sylvia Llewelyn Davies) became a friend of James Barrie , whose Peter Pan was in part inspired by her five small sons.
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
Barrie was a famous writer making huge sums of money when LCA met him. He was about the age of her father, had been unsuccessfully married, and doted on the idea of motherhood and on...
Family and Intimate relationships George Egerton
Bright first had a column in the Evening Sun, and later wrote for the Daily Express and the Pall Mall Gazette. He was sub-editor at the Evening Sun and night-editor at the Daily...
Family and Intimate relationships Rosamund Marriott Watson
She probably met the handsome Watson , a novelist who was, like her first husband, an Australian, in 1893 when he attended practices of the cricket team of which he and her second husband were...
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
In less than three months LCA lost in rapid succession her mother , her eldest (institutionalised) son, her patron J. M. Barrie , and her father : it was Barrie's death which seemed to distress her most.
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
307
Friends, Associates Katharine Tynan
Living in a suburb of London, KT frequented the heart of English literary culture. She had already joined London's Irish Literary Society , and was later appointed its Honorary Vice-President.
Tynan, Katharine. The Years of the Shadow. Constable, 1919.
3-4
Among other literary figures...
Friends, Associates Annie S. Swan
She also mentions a great many literary names. Among women writers whom she calls the stars of her generation were Mary Augusta Ward , Lucas Malet , Lucy Clifford , Sarah Grand , Violet Hunt
Friends, Associates Lady Cynthia Asquith
As well as her close relationships with Angela Thirkell and Barrie , LCA built a significant friendship with the novelist D. H. Lawrence (who has been seen as drawing her portrait in The Blind Man...

Timeline

1878: William Swan Sonnenschein and J. Archibald...

Writing climate item

1878

William Swan Sonnenschein and J. Archibald Allen formed a partnership in the publishing firm of Swan Sonnenschein and Allen , at 15 Paternoster Square, London.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 291-2

1901: The publication of George Douglas Brown's...

Writing climate item

1901

The publication of George Douglas Brown 's novel The House with the Green Shutters marked the first attack on the Scottish school of fiction that was afterwards known as Kailyard.
Campbell, Ian. Kailyard. Ramsay Head, 1981.
7-17
Blake, George. Barrie and the Kailyard School. Arthur Barker, 1951.
9-18
Dickson, Beth. “Annie S. Swan and O. Douglas: Legacies of the Kailyard”. A History of Scottish Women’s Writing, edited by Douglas Gifford et al., Edinburgh University Press, 1997, pp. 329-46.
329, 340
Hart, Francis Russell. The Scottish Novel: From Smollett to Spark. Harvard University Press, 1978.
114

May 1926: Eighteen-year-old actress Peggy Ashcroft...

Building item

May 1926

Eighteen-year-old actress Peggy Ashcroft made her professional debut in J. M. Barrie 's Dear Brutus with the Birmingham Repertory Company, when another performer was transferred.
Billington, Michael. Peggy Ashcroft, 1907-1991. Mandarin, 1991.
21-2

1947: James Barrie, great-nephew of playwright...

Writing climate item

1947

James Barrie , great-nephew of playwright Sir James Barrie , founded an imprint to publish popular books, among them Lady Cynthia Asquith 's diaries.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
36

Texts

Barrie, Sir J. M. Auld Licht Idylls. Hodder and Stoughton, 1888.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Becky Sharp. 1891.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Dear Brutus. Uniform ed., Hodder and Stoughton, 1922.
Barrie, Sir J. M. et al. Jane Annie. Chappell, 1893.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Letters of J.M. Barrie. Editor Meynell, Viola, Peter Davies, 1942.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Mary Rose. Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.
Barrie, Sir J. M., and F. D. Bedford. Peter and Wendy. Hodder and Stoughton, 1911.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Peter Pan. Uniform Edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1928.
Barrie, Sir J. M., and Arthur Rackham. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Hodder and Stoughton, 1906.
Barrie, Sir J. M., and H. B. Marriott Watson. Richard Savage. Privately printed, 1891.
Barrie, Sir J. M. The Admirable Crichton. Hodder and Stoughton, 1914.
Barrie, Sir J. M. The Boy David. Uniform ed., Peter Davies, 1938.
Barrie, Sir J. M. The Little White Bird. Hodder and Stoughton, 1902.
Barrie, Sir J. M. What Every Woman Knows. Hodder and Stoughton, 1918.