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Sir James Matthew Barrie

General Information       Prominent Barrie Web Sites       Friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle       Correspondence with Robert Louis Stevenson       Movies       Barrie Works On-Line       Other Barrie Sites      

General Information

According to a short biography "James Barrie was born on May 9, 1860 in Kirriemuir. His father was a handloom weaver, and he had three brothers and seven sisters. ... He often listened to his mother's tales of her childhood, until he imagined himself in them. Opposite his home was a wash house, where he would make up plays with his friends and act in them. After going to school in Kirriemuir and Forfar. ... James put his own plays with a friend. He was determined to be a writer, but the family wanted him to go to Edinburgh University to get a degree. ... He wrote articles for an Edinburgh newspaper. ... In 1885, he moved to London and worked articles for newspapers. ... He had Auld Licht Idylls published in 1888 and people liked the humour in it. Many successful novels and plays followed. ... He died on June 19th, 1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir, next to his parents, sister and brother David. Rampant Scotland also has another biography of Sir J. M. Barrie as does the Literary Encyclopedia. See also: Barrie's Birthplace for Schools [pdf file]; and ANON: the J. M. Barrie Society; Books and Writers and, a list of his writings.

Prominent Barrie Web Sites

The true source:  Andrew Birkin, Barrie biographer, producer, director, and screenwriter has a Web site containing Barrie memorabilia. According to Mr. Birkin ... this website is primarily a means of sharing the vast amount of research material I seem to have gathered over the past 30-odd years.  The heart of the archive is the Nico Collection (several thousand letters, documents and photo-graphs I bought from Nico Llewelyn Davies in 1980), the Mary Hodgson Collection, kindly donated by her niece in 1977, and the Peter Davies Collection - all his writings, including seven volumes of the Morgue, and his letters to JMB from the Western Front, donated by his son Rivvy in 1992.  According to a note from Mr. Birkin to The Capital Scot:  This is a totally non-profit making site that carries no advertising.  The only beneficiaries are the Great Ormond Street Hospital, should any commercial organisation wish to use images from the thousands now available on the free database. ... Many thanks again for your support.

The Great Ormond Street Hospital launched their new website, Peter Pan in Scarlet, in July 2006.  The site's name reflects the title of the sequel to J. M. Barrie's much loved Peter Pan son to be on bookshelves across the globe.

James Matthew Barrie is a French language site with biography, bibliography, quotes, and other information about J. M. Barrie.  There is also a discussion group.

Friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Chronicles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle article Conan Doyle and James M. Barrie tells an interesting story:  Barrie and Conan Doyle both Scottish, both had attended Edinburgh University and both were avid cricket players.  Conan Doyle played on Barrie's Allah-Akabarries team.  The team name was a combination of Barrie's last name and an Arabic phrase meaning, 'May the Lord help us'.  Doyle and Barrie collaborated on an opera titled Jane Annie, or The Good Conduct Prize.  While the operetta wasn't a success the friendship was.  They were lifelong friends.

Correspondence with Robert Louis Stevenson

His mother, Margaret Ogilvy, the daughter of a stonemason read her children R.L. Stevenson's adventure stories in the evenings.  According to A Tribute to J M Barrie by Miller H Caldwell - Peter Pan, Wendy House, the ticking crockodile. My connection with JM Barrie:  Undaunted, and indeed doubly motivated, he [Barrie] began sending to a variety of publications, a variety of articles, generally unsigned.  A few years later Dr W Robertson Nicoll founder of the British Weekly, a major influence on his future career, suggested he use a pen-name and so 'Gavin Ogilvy' appeared author, among others, of An Edinburgh Eleven.
Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 2:  "Dear J. M. Barrie, - You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it.  I have been off my work for some time, and re-read the Edinburgh Eleven, and had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back again, and see how you would like it yourself.  And then I read (for the first time - I know not how) the Window in Thrums; I don't say that it is better than The Minister; it's less of a tale - and there is a beauty, a material beauty, of the tale IPSE, which clever critics nowadays long and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it is - well, I read it last anyway, and it's by Barrie.  And he's the man for my money.  The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and as true as death and judgment.  Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but I think it was a journalist that got in the word 'official.' The same character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard.  Thomas affects me as a lie - I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew, that leads people so far astray.  The actual is not the true.
"I am proud to think you are a Scotchman - though to be sure I know nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin Ogilvy.  I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie, whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national pride.  There are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the head.  And please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with you, that I am wholly blinded with vanity.  Jess is beyond my frontier line; I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on my pen.  I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you were a man of genius.  Take care of yourself, for my sake.  It's a devilish hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should get so few to read.  And I can read yours, and I love them."

Movies

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has a list of movies based on Barrie's works with links to detailed information about them.

The movie Finding Neverland was relased in October 2004. The movie is based on the biography of the Scottish playwrite Sir. James M. Barrie, and it stars Johny Depp. It details the experiences of Peter Pan author Sir J.M. Barrie, which lead him to write the children's classic. He got to know four children who had no fathers. Drawing from his time with the kids, he writes a story about children who don't want to grow up. See the IMDb plot summary and Movie Tome information.

Also the script to the BBC production, The Lost Boys, is now online - Click on BBC TV - The Lost Boys then "SCRIPTS"

According to Playbill two plays by Sir J. M. Barrie are to be revived soon - The Old Lady Shows Her Medals and The New Word. According to Playbill "Next up is the man who encouraged Milne to become a playwright, none other that Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie. The Scottish Barrie wrote many other plays beside Peter Pan, among them a couple notable vehicles for Ethel Barrymore, The Twelve Pound Look and Alice Sit-By-The-Fire. He also penned a couple of one-acts titled The Old Lady Shows Her Medals and The New Word. The Mint will present both under the name Echoes of the War."

Actress Judy Campbell passed away at 88 on June 6, 2004. She was the mother of Andrew Birkin (writer/filmaker and author of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys). It was his mother who urged him to write the biography of Barrie and the book was dedicated to her.

Barrie Works On-Line

Project Gutenberg has many of the works of J.M. Barrie on-line.  Scroll down to Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew), 1860-1937 and link to each one.  Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks.  The mission of Project Gutenberg is to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.

Read Print, a free online library, has a copy of Peter Pan on-line.

Other Barrie Sites

J.M. Barrie Teacher Resource File is hosted by the Internet School Library Media Center (ISLMC).  There are links to children's authors.  The ISLMC is a meta-site for librarians, teachers, parents and students.  You can search this site, use an index or a sitemap.  [NOTE: Some broken links in site!]

See Kirriemuir - Barrie House,  Barrie Pavilion, and  A Window in Thrums.

Barrie's grave may be found in Kirriemuir.

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