From Roger Lancelyn Green’s Fifty Years of Peter Pan (Peter Davies Ltd, 1955):

 

IN THE SUMMERof 1900 the Barries, in search of a permanent holiday home in the country, took Black Lake Cottage between Farnham and Tilford, in Surrey. It was hidden in the midst of thick, scented pinewoods, on the shores of the little Black Lake, no other house in sight, and a view over the tree-tops from the low hill behind it.
 In July of the following year the Llewelyn Davies family came to stay for six weeks in a farmhouse at Tilford-so near the Barries that they could meet when they liked, and the elder boys could spend the days in the woods and on the shores of the lake with Barrie.
 Here the games and stories from Kensington Gardens were resumed - but with a difference. There were no fairies on the shores of the Black Lake - and apparently no Peter Pan: but there were pirates and redskins, and all the joys of shipwrecks and desert islands, not merely to hear about but to enact.
 Just as Bevis and Mark in Richard Jefferies's story explored and mapped the shores and islands of their reservoir near Swindon, so George, Jack, and Peter, with Barrie's assistance and inspiration, converted Black Lake into the centre of a wonderland packed with the very essence of romance culled from the storybooks which the boys were now reading - or which Barrie recaptured from his own childhood.
  "To be born is to be wrecked on an island", wrote Barrie in his Preface to The Coral Island in 1913 - and "wrecked islands" were his speciality, as The Admirable Crichton was to prove the following year, and Peter Pan not long afterwards - to say nothing of Lob's Wood and Mary Rose's mysterious island. But The Coral Island supplied the immediate background, with The Swiss Family Robinson somewhere in mind, while Masterman Ready had its influence too, with Fenimore Cooper's redskins and the pirates from Treasure Island.
 Endless adventure stories, endless adventures, with shipwrecks, hut-building, encounters with wild animals (obligingly impersonated by Porthos) - Redskins lurking behind every tree, and a Pirate Ship waiting for them on the South-sea Lagoon that ignorant adults called the Black Lake - and Barrie the magician to make all this so real that it almost seemed to be happening.
 Of course the basic idea has been and always will be common to many a small boy with no Barrie to act as instigator and organiser. Not only have most of us played at pirates or redskins (or some modern equivalent), but many, if not all, of us have at one time or another sent ourselves to sleep at nights with an endless serial of startling personal adventures. The basic idea in most of these sagas is to run away from home, engage in the most magnificent adventures, and return home, to the wonder and abject adoration of our friends and relations - particularly our schoolmasters, one of whom has usually filled the role of villain during all or many of the preceding adventures.
 Among the earliest literary examples is the little known Holiday Romance by Charles Dickens (1868), one of the four chapters of which narrates (in his own words) how Lieut-Colonel Robin Redforth, alias Captain Boldheart (aged nine), "considering himself spited by a Latin-grammar master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honour to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company ... and entered on a career of valour” - as a pirate.
 There was no need, however, for Barrie to have read Holiday Romance ; and even "A Saga of the Seas", in Kenneth Grahame's Dream Days (1899), did no more than clothe in choicely balanced phrases what he and many another boy knew quite well already. (Long before I dreamt of any such literary progenitors I was telling myself just such a story, even to the duel with a Latin master-which actually took place in my private saga - and though there were no pirates, there were multitudes of other adventures, culminating in the inevitable return home to the envious and admiring friends and relatives.)
With or without Peter Pan as a character, and with a literary knowledge and skill denied to the ordinary boy, it was still basically this same saga of the seas, this naturally inspired holiday romance, that Barrie was telling to George and Jack and Peter, which they were enacting at Black Lake, and which he was trying to capture (in its outward semblance) with his camera.
The holiday ended and Barrie poring over his photographs, the idea came suddenly to him of making a book out of it all : a novel and unusual book, of which there were to be only two copies in existence (one of which was promptly left in a train by the boys' father and never heard of again).
The book was printed and bound to resemble a Ballantyne or Kingston adventure story, and the literary portion was a burlesque of such stories, aimed mainly at The Swiss Family Robinson style of narrative, but not sparing even The Coral Island. It consists of a Preface, sixteen chapter-headings and thirty-six illustrations with a legend under each; there is no text, however, only the three-dozen photographs. ...
The book has been described by Barrie in his “Dedication” to the published edition of Peter Pan. It is worth, however, reproducing the Preface and the chapter-headings, on which he hardly touches.
The Preface faintly recalls Ernest Woolley's account of the island adventures in The Admirable Crichton - and much more closely the older type of adventure story:
  

I have been requested by my brothers to write a few words of introduction to this little volume, and I comply with pleasure, though well aware that others may be better acquitted for the task.

The strange happenings here set forth with a currente calamo are expansions of a note-book kept by me while we were on the Island, but I have thought fit, in exercise of my prerogative as general editor, to omit certain observations with regard to flora, fauna, etc., which, however valuable to myself and to others of scientific bent, would probably have but a limited interest to the lay mind. I have also in this edition excluded a chapter on strata as caviare to the general.

The date on which we were wrecked was this year, on August 1, 1901, and I have still therefore a vivid recollection of that strange and terrible summer, when we suffered experiences such as have probably never before been experienced by three brothers. At this time the eldest, George, was eight and a month, Jack was approaching his seventh lustrum [sic!], and I was a good bit past four. Perhaps a few words about my companions on the island will not be deemed out of place.

George was a fine, fearless youth, and had now been a term at Wilkinson's.[1] He was modest withal. His chief fault was wanting to do all the shooting, and carrying the arrows inside his shirt with that selfish object. Jack is also brave as a lion, but he also has many faults (see pp. 22-59), and he has a weakness (perhaps pardonable) for a pretty face (bless them!). Of Peter I prefer to say nothing, hoping that the tale, as it is unwound, will show that lie was a boy of deeds rather than of words, which was another of Jack's blemishes (see p. 41, also pp. 93 and 117). In conclusion, I should say that the work was in the first instance compiled as a record simply, at which we could whet our memories, and that it is now published for Michael's benefit. If it teaches him by example lessons in fortitude and manly endurance, we shall consider that we were not wrecked in vain.

 The list of chapters gives a good outline of the sort of story Barrie was weaving for the boys - presented here, once again, in burlesque of the Ballantyne school:

 I. Early Days - Our Amusing Mother - Her Indiscretions.

II. Schools and Schoolmasters - Mary's[2] Bullying Ways-George teaches Wilkinson a Stern Lesson - We run away to Sea.

III. A Fearful Hurricane - Wreck of the Anna Pink - The Long-boat - We go crazy from Want of Food - Proposal to eat Peter - Land ahoy!

IV. First Night on Black Lake Island - a Horrible Discovery - The Bread-fruit Tree - Monkeys and Cocoanuts - Turning a Turtle.

V. Gallant Behaviour of Jack - We make Bows and Arrows - We set about the building of a Hut.

VI. Tree-cutting - Madame Bruin and her Cubs - George to the Rescue - Pig-sticking and its Dangers.

VII. We finish the Hut - George and Jack set off on a Voyage of Exploration round the Island - Primeval Forests - Night in the Woods - Startling Discovery that the Island is the Haunt of Captain Swarthy and his Pirate Crew.

VIII. Dead Men's Point - Corpsy Glen - The Valley of Rolling Stones.

IX. Exploration Continued - We find Captain Swarthy's Dog - Suspended Animation - We are attacked by Wolves - Jack saves George's Life.

X. The Hut meanwhile - The Pirates set upon Peter - “Shut up” - Peter is sentenced to Walk the Plank - Timely Arrival of George and Jack.

XI. We board the Pirate Sloop at Dawn - a Rakish Craft - George Hew-them-down and Jack of the Red Hatchet - A Holocaust of Pirates - Rescue of Peter.

XII. Trial of Captain Swarthy - He begs for mercy - We string him up.

XIII. The Rainy Season - Malarial Fever - A Ship in the Offing - Disappointment nobly borne.

XIV. We build a Boat - Narrow Escape from a Tiger - Skinning the Tiger.

XV. The Pleasures of Tobacco - Peter's Dream of Home - Last Night on the Island - We sail for England, Home, and Wilkinson's.

XVI. Concluding Remarks - Advice to Parents about bringing up their Children.

 

To show what Barrie was up to, here are a few selections from some genuine chapter- headings in well-known "wrecked-island" stories:

The Swiss Family Robinson - 1812: Jack's Adventure and Narrow Escape - Close of the Rainy Season - The Alarm - A Dangerous Visitor - The Land Turtle - Efficacy of Tobacco Smoke - The Cacao Tree.

Masterman Ready (Marryat) - 1841: Dreadful Storm - Terrible Wreck and Loss of Life - Hope Restored - Discovery of Land - Value of the Cocoanut Tree - Turning Turtles - Vessel in Sight - Disappointment.

The Coral Island -1858: A Dreadful Storm and a Frightful Wreck - We conclude the Island is uninhabited - Jack proves himself to be learned and sagacious above his fellows - We get a dreadful fright - The bread-fruit tree - Peculiarity of the cocoanut palm - Mysterious footsteps - Jack commences to build a little boat - I fall into the hands of Pirates - A strange and bloody battle.

The Mysterious Island (Jules Verne) - 1875: A Dreadful Night - Sight of Land - The first supper, and Night on Shore - In the Midst of the Forests - Is the island inhabited? - Troops of Monkeys - Suspicious Vessel - The Brig anchors in Sight of the Island - A Desperate Situation.

As these books are the classics among shipwreck stories, it is easy to imagine what sort of chapter-headings one might find in lesser, ephemeral examples-to say nothing of the “penny dreadfuls” of Barrie's boyhood.
The “extracts” printed to explain each of the photographs in The Boy Castaways also represent the typical phraseology of the genre, but most of them are too short to be amusing. The photographs themselves, now fading slowly, show three little boys in berets and knickerbockers, exactly as in contemporary illustrations by Gordon Browne, playing earnestly and happily among the pinewoods and on the shores of the Black Lake.
“We set out to be wrecked.” “We were the sole survivors of the ill-fated Anna Pink.” “The first night on the island fell very dark and mysterious.” “It was George waiting for the dawn with one hand upon his dagger.” “We prepared for the pirates by making spears and other trusty weapons.” “We begin the building of the hut.” – All these explain themselves and are typical of the majority.
Porthos appears from time to tune : “It was the pirate Swarthy's dog patrolling the island.” “We trained the dog to watch over us while we slept.” It is also a picture of Porthos which boasts the ambiguous caption : “The dog of a pirate had seen us.”
“George found himself within four paces of a tiger.” “George struck at him, but missed.” “We had pierced him in his vulnerable part” - also show Porthos, but now wearing a tiger mask. “We carried home the head and skin as trophies” shows, of course, the mask and a skin rug.
“The pirate Swarthy came rushing upon us, armed to the teeth” shows only “us” prepared to receive him, but the next picture “We strung him up” shows a stuffed suit of Barrie's clothes and a swarthy mask in the act of being hanged from the branch of a tree: like Hook he is certainly “black-avised”, and his hair might even be described as “dressed in long curls which look like black candles about to melt” - but here the similarity ends.
Only five of the illustrations bear legends which really parody the type of extract one could easily make even from The Swiss Family Robinson:

“George at once recognised it to be the Mango (Mangifera Indica) by its lancet-shaped leaves and the cucumber-shaped fruit.
“While Jack was removing the crocodiles from the stream, George shot a few parrots (Psittacidæ) for our mid-day meal.
“It is undoubtedly,” said George, “the cocos nucifera, for observe the slender columns supporting the crown of leaves which fall with a grace that no art can imitate.” (Here again, as in the garden at Dumfries, the trees bear strange fruit!)
“Truly,” said George, “though the perils of these happenings are great, yet would I rejoice to endure still greater privations to be thus rewarded by such wondrous studies of nature.”
They had to sit outside [the hut], because their brother was within singing, and playing on a barbaric instrument. “The music,” said Peter, “is rude, and to a cultivated ear discordant ; but the songs, like those of the Arab, are full of poetic imagery.”
They had to sit outside [the hut], because their brother was within singing, and playing on a barbaric instrument. “The music,” said Peter, “is rude, and to a cultivated ear discordant ; but the songs, like those of the Arab, are full of poetic imagery.

”The most immediate borrowings from The Boy Castaways appeared in The Little White Bird, which was published the following year. Following the Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens chapters, Barrie tells how David, the boy in the story, began to grow beyond the stage of being interested in fairies, largely under the influence of an older boy, Oliver, who was already at “Pilkington’s” school [actually called “Wilkinson's”, which is mentioned in The Boy Castaways.] In the story Barrie not only wins back David, but captivates Oliver Bailey as well:

With wrecked islands I did it. I began in the most unpretentious way by telling them a story which might last an hour, and favoured by many an unexpected wind it lasted eighteen months. It started as the wreck of the simple Swiss family who looked up and saw the butter-tree, but soon a glorious inspiration of the night turned it into the wreck of David A–– and Oliver Bailey. At first it was what they were to do when they were wrecked, but imperceptibly it became what they had done. I spent much of my time staring reflectively at the titles of the boys' stories in the booksellers' windows, whistling for a breeze, so to say, for I found that the titles were even more helpful than the stories. ... By this time I had been cast upon the island. ... They found me among the breakers with a large dog, which had kept me afloat throughout that terrible night. I was the sole survivor of the ill-fated Anna Pink. So exhausted was I that they had to carry me to their hut, and great was my gratitude when on opening my eyes I found myself in that romantic edifice instead of in Davy Jones's locker. As we walked in the Gardens I told them of the hut they had built; and they were inflated but not surprised. On the other hand they looked for surprise from me. ...

“Was it Oliver,” asked David sharply, “that found the cocoanut tree first?”
“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was first observed by David, who immediately climbed it, remarking, ‘This is certainly the cocos nucifera, for, see, dear Oliver, the slender columns supporting the crown of leaves, which fall with a grace that no art can imitate.’”
“That's what I said,” remarked David, with a wave of his hand.
“I said things like that too,” Oliver insisted. ...
“The following,” I announced, "is one that Oliver said: ‘Truly, dear comrade, though the perils of these happenings are great, and our privations calculated to break the stoutest heart, yet to be rewarded by such fair sights I would endure still greater trials, and still rejoice even as the bird on yonder bough.’ ”
“That’s one I said!” crowed Oliver.
“I shot the bird,” said David instantly.
“What bird?”
“The yonder bird.” ...

  

From Roger Lancelyn Green’s Fifty Years of Peter Pan (Peter Davies Ltd, 1955), Chapter 4, pp. 20-28. Quoted with kind permission of the author’s son, Richard Lancelyn Green, and Peter Davies Ltd.

[1]

Wilkinson's: a preparatory school at 10 Orme Square, London, W., to which all the Davies boys went. [back up]

[2]

Mary Hodgson, devoted Nurse to the Davies boys. [back up]

 

More about Roger Lancelyn Green
Barrie’s Dedication to Peter Pan
Denis Mackail’s account
Andrew Birkin’s version

 

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