His story was made known thanks to the film “Neverland – A dream for life” starring Johnny Depp. With a particular life and a novel that became a pillar of children’s stories, that’s who James Matthew was.
Who was James Matthew Barrie
James Matthew Barrie (Kirriemuir, May 9, 1860 – London, June 19, 1937), was an English writer. He grows up in a very large family of ten children in Scotland. From an early age he was recognized by his brothers for his great creativity which often leads him to invent imaginative stories. There literature it becomes something fundamental for him when he loses one of his brothers. Reading the great classics becomes a way to be able to bond with the mother, devastated by the death of a son.
From a scholastic point of view it also proves to be a excellent student attending various academies and also graduating from the University of Edinburgh. He enters the world of work first as Journalist for the Nottingham Journal, an experience that proves to be disappointing, and then how writer. He began this career in the city of London and managed to achieve moderate success with “Auld Licht Idylls” about everyday life in Scotland told with a brilliant tone.
James Matthew Barrie’s career
Subsequently publishes other novels who get compliments from critics and audiences. “The Little Minister” of 1891 is also brought to theater and repeated three different times. Thus began a period that led him to mainly write screenplays passing from comedy to drama. For example, we remember “Quality Street”, “What Every Woman Knows” and “The Admirable Crichton” proposed simultaneously in the theaters of London’s West End.
To lead him to the realization of his best known work, however, is a set of events. One day knows the Davies family in Hyde Park and this introduces him to their five children. Immediately connect with them to the point of inviting them to the cottage he owns not far from the city. This report allows him to sketch “Peter Pan”.
The figure of Peter Pan is presented to the public for the first time in 1902, in another novel by the author entitled “The Little White Bird”. He later presents him to the theater two years later in the show “Peter Pan, or the boy who did not want to grow up” which is then adapted and presented as novel entitled “Peter and Wendy”.
Private life of James Matthew Barrie
His figure hardly finds a univocal opinion on the part of the public. If in fact he is known for his contribution to the realization of minor theatrical works and for defying censorship implemented by Lord Chamberlain, on the other hand there is no shortage of negative news about him. In fact, it is said that the Davies couple died entrust your children to him and that for some his name is linked to cases of pedophilia. The rumors have been denied by the boys of the Davies family, however, always leaving the mystery around this theme.
He and the boys stay together for a few years because the two older ones offer themselves volunteers to participate in the First World War. Unfortunately one of the two dies in the trenches while the second commits suicide because he is unable to overcome the traumas of the war. Meanwhile Barrie meets and tells stories to famous people as the daughter of the Duke of York, or what is now known as Queen Elizabeth II. Through this role he receives the title of Sir and receives the Order of Merit.