Peter Pan is a naughty boy who never ages. Instead, he lives on the island of Neverland where he leads the Lost Boys and has adventures with mermaids, fairies and pirates. The two books in this edition include: Peter and Wendy (originally published 1911) Barrie's most famous book chronicles the adventures of Peter, Wendy Darling and fairy Tinker Bell and pirate Captain Hook. The novel began as a 1904 play which was then published as a book seven years later. The Little White Bird (1902) The full edition of the 1902 novel (extracts of which formed the novel Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens) was originally written for adults in a darkly comic tone.
James Matthew Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays.
The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.
In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.
Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.