The Plays of J. M. Barrie: Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up

6C J.M. Barrie. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1928. First edition Notes J. M. Barrie was first and foremost a playwright, and long before Peter Pan became famous as a book, it lived and breathed on the stage. By the turn of the 20th century, Barrie was already highly successful with his productions and celebrated for works such as The Admirable Crichton and Quality Street, which mixed wit, social observation, and emotional restraint. Peter Pan emerged gradually from his dramatic imagination, first appearing in embryonic form in The Little White Bird (1902) before fully taking shape as a stage play. Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up premiered in London in December 1904 and was conceived entirely for performance, relying on spectacle, stage illusion, music, and audience participation. Barrie continually revised the play over the years, treating it as fluid and theatrical rather than a fixed literary text, and for decades he resisted publishing a definitive script. The play was f