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He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.


Barrie was made a baronet by George V in 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1922. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them.

It's a shame that his lesser-known short stories, such as The Inconsiderate Waiter, and the The Courting of T'Nowhead's Bell do no not get more recognition. They are far deeper, darker, more cynical views of adulthood and more humorous than his land of Neverland.

YOU PROBABLY KNOW: Peter Pan first appeared as part of a story within a story in Barrie’s 1902 novel The Little White Bird.

BUT DID YOU KNOW: Captain Hook was not in the original play

Barrie’s notes show that he saw no need for a villain like Hook — he felt Peter was a “demon boy” who could create his own havoc. And the reason the story changed was an unromantic one: To give stagehands more time to switch scenery, Barrie needed a scene that could be performed at the front of the stage. He ended up writing one that featured a pirate ship; with this, Captain Hook came to life. The role soon expanded into a full-fledged nemesis for Peter.

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