Emerging fascination with childhood in Edwardian England was dubbed “the cult of the child.”.Barrie first created Peter Pan to entertain his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies’s sons.His mother’s reaction to the death shaped young Barrie significantly. After Peter defeats Captain Hook, all the boys except Peter return with Wendy to London and are adopted by her parents. She convinces Peter to take her home with him to be his “mother.” Wendy and her two brothers travel to Neverland where they meet the Lost Boys and have adventures involving Indians, mermaids and pirates. Wendy Darling meets Peter Pan when he flies in her family’s window to retrieve his lost shadow.Barrie’s Peter and Wendy offers an ahead-of-its-time exploration of children’s emotional and moral development. Both a celebration of childhood innocence and a warning allegory about its over-romanticization, Barrie’s creation simultaneously entertains the young, speaks to adults longing for a past golden era, and offers an ahead-of-its-time exploration of children’s emotional and moral development. The novel’s sarcastic and opinionated narrator and its engagement of heady themes – including death, the power of imagination and the bitter sweetness of growing up – lend the text a depth and complexity that explain its resonance with adult readers since its 1911 publication. Despite its child-appropriate premise, a darkness lurks below the story’s surface – reflective of the sad real-life events which haunted Barrie himself. But while the story of Peter Pan has been told time and again over the years, Peter and Wendy itself retains its ability to surprise the unwary reader.

Barrie’s classic tale of the mysterious boy, Peter Pan, who never grows up, and of the young girl, Wendy, who flies with him to the fantasy island of Neverland.

Peter pan the novel