Andrew Birkin. J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. [Book review]

J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (originally titled Peter Pan and Wendy) has a history as subtle and complex as any of the images and themes the work itself evokes. First staged as a pantomime on the stage of the Duke of York’s Theatre in London on December 27, 1904, the prose version was first published in 1911. Before that, aspects of the narrative can be found in Barrie’s earlier works, including The Little White Bird (1902). Now, to celebrate the centenary of Peter Pan, Yale UP has republished Andrew Birkin’s landmark biography of Barrie, a tale which unfolds through an impressive array of documentary detritus from Barrie’s relationship with the five boys of the Llewelyn Davies family, the boys generally agreed to be the inspiration for Pan’s Lost Boys.