Lost Boy: The Story of the Man Who Created Peter Pan (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Lost Boy: The Story of the Man Who Created Peter Pan
This straightforward picture book-style biography of Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie chronicles his childhood in Scotland, his early writerly attempts, his move to London, his burgeoning success as a playwright and novelist, and the creation and legacy of his best-known work. Along the way, it documents his friendship with the Llewelyn Davies children, who collectively inspired Peter Pan, and his eventual guardianship of them after the death of their parents. The tale is on the adulatory side, and it skips over the complexities of his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, stating incorrectly that he became the official guardian of the boys (his seizing of sole custody was never officially sanctioned). Though many cited quotations appear from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Peter and Wendy, and the play Peter Pan, the narrative never explains the difference between them, and typos (the misspelling of one of Barrie's works and, at one point, the Llewelyn Davies family's name) and formatting oddities mar the text with unusual frequency. That being said, this is a solid introduction to the life and legacy of a man who has been overshadowed by his best-known work, and it may be a revelation to youngsters who thought Peter Pan was dreamed up either by Walt Disney or a peanut-butter company. Though the faces in the woodgrain-textured paintings are a little unindividuated, there's an elfin quality to them that lifts the art's earth-toned period formality. A selected list of Barrie's works and a few actresses who've played Peter appear at the book's a close; a brief list of works consulted appears on the copyright page. [End Page 105]
