Scarce Highly Collectible Colour Illustrated 2006 Peter Pan & Wendy Hardcover Book By J. M. Barrie (13”/34cm, 1.85kg).
Absolutely superb limited edition book. Illustrated by Debra McFarlane known for her work particularly on this Folio Society edition of “Peter Pan and Wendy”.
Please browse all 24 sets photographs attached for size, weight and condition as they are self explanatory.
13/34cm Long
10”/25cm Wide
1.25”/3.2cm Thick
Decorative blue cover.
Gilt to spine and front.
Pictorial endpapers
Card slip case.
179 pages.
12 colour plates.
Black & white drawings throughout.
Illustrations by Debra McFarlane.
Published 2006
Award Publications Ltd.
In excellent condition. Very good, clean, tight copy.
Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, is a fictional character by Scottish novelist Sir James Sir James Matthew Barrie in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel titled “Peter and Wendy”. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly, and has many adventures on the island of Neverland that is inhabited by mermaids, fairies, Native Americans and pirates.
The Peter Pan stories also involve the characters Wendy Darling and her two brothers John and Michael, Peter's fairy Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and the pirate Captain Hook. The play and novel were inspired by Barrie's friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family.
Peter Pan is a free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, he spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland.
Peter Pan has become a cultural icon symbolising youthful innocence and escapism. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, the novel The Little White Bird (1902), and the West End stage play Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904), the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie's works. These include several films, television series and many other works.
Barrie commissioned a statue of Peter Pan by the sculptor George Frampton, which was erected overnight in Kensington Gardens on 30 April 1912 as a surprise to the children of London. Six other statues have been cast from the original mould and displayed around the world. In 2002, he featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail on the centenary of Barrie's creation of the character.
Barrie gave the copyright to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in 1929. Whilst the works are now in the public domain, the hospital maintains the right to collect royalties from adaptations in the United Kingdom thanks to a special amendment to the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
Peter Pan first appeared as a character in Barrie's The Little White Bird (1902), a novel for adults. In chapters 13–18, titled "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", Peter is a seven-day-old baby and has flown from his nursery to Kensington Gardens in London, where the fairies and birds taught him to fly.
J. M. Barrie may have based the character on his older brother, David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before his 14th birthday. His mother and brother thought of him as forever a boy. A later inspiration was his friendship with the Llewelyn Davies boys, as described in Barrie's Dedication to the first edition of the play: "I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produced a flame. That is all he is, the spark I got from you."
Peter is an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He claims greatness, even when such claims are questionable (such as congratulating himself when Wendy re-attaches his shadow). In the play and book, Peter symbolises the selfishness of childhood, and is portrayed as being forgetful and self-centred.
Peter's archetypal quality is his unending youth. In Peter and Wendy, it is explained that Peter must forget his own adventures and what he learns about the world in order to stay childlike. Peter Pan is a free spirit, being too young to be burdened with the effects of education or to have an adult appreciation of moral responsibility.
Peter Pan ran away from his parents when he was a baby as told in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and Peter and Wendy. Finding the window closed and seeing a new baby boy in the house when he returned some time later, he believed his parents no longer wanted him and never came back.
While in Kensington Gardens, Peter meets a lost girl named Maimie Mannering and the two quickly become friends. She is considered to be the literary predecessor of Wendy Darling. It is hinted that Wendy may have romantic feelings for Peter, but unrequited because of his inability to love.
Wendy was the only girl who captured his attention.
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, 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. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.
Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the name Wendy.
Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours. 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 today.
Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, to a conservative Calvinist family. His father, David Barrie, was a modestly successful weaver. His mother, Margaret Ogilvy, assumed her deceased mother's household responsibilities at the age of eight. Barrie was the ninth child of ten (two of whom died before he was born).
Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author; however, his family attempted to persuade him to minister. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh where he wrote drama reviews for the Edinburgh Evening Courant. He graduated and obtained an M.A. on 21 April 1882.
Barrie moved in literary circles and had many famous friends. Novelist George Meredith was an early social patron. He had a long correspondence with fellow Scot Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in Samoa at the time. Stevenson invited Barrie to visit him, but the two never met. He was also friends with fellow Scots writer S. R. Crockett. George Bernard Shaw was his neighbour in London for several years. H. G. Wells was a friend of many years. Barrie met Thomas Hardy while staying in London and was friends with Nobel prize winner John Galsworthy.
Barrie became acquainted with actress Mary Ansell in 1891. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. They married in Kirriemuir on 9 July 1894. The couple had no children.
Barrie died of pneumonia at a nursing home in Manchester Street, Marylebone on 19 June 1937. He was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings. His birthplace at 9 Brechin Road is maintained as a museum by the National Trust for Scotland.
Barrie left the bulk of his estate to his secretary Lady Cynthia Asquith, excluding the rights to all Peter Pan works whose copyright he had previously given to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
The Illustrator:
The gifted Debra McFarlane was born in the 1970's in Wimbledon and grew up in Kingston-Upon-Thames in South-West London. She graduated from Kingston University in 1997, with a BA Hons in Illustration and worked freelance as an illustrator and printmaker.
She often works in etching and aquatint (inked-up on the plate in one sitting and printed in one impression) and in watercolour. Her impressive work is mostly inspired by fairytales and stories, animals and mythological creatures and places she has visited.