| Site update information : Fri Oct 5 00:51:09 2007 |
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Various new bits and pieces have been added to the database, including a 10 page article by Pauline Chase on playing Peter Pan (Strand Magazine, 1913), a rather remarkable 2-page spread about Barrie (with a wonderful photo) from the New York Times Magazine in May 1931 -- and Nico's inimitable comments and corrections to the proofs of my JMB book....
Over the next few weeks I hope to add more goodies as and when I have time. Rather than trawl through all 2,500+ entries looking for new additions, I have taken to adding the date (year) at the foot of each new addition's description between squiggly brackets, thus a search for {2007} will bring up everything added so far this year. If anyone has access to material they would like to share and feel should be included the database, I'd be most grateful if they'd email it to me as a JEPG attachment, with an accompanying caption, and I will hoist it - with due acknowledgement - asap. |
| Site update information : Thu Aug 30 20:39:52 2007 |
| Dafydd has spent many weeks revamping and redesigning the website, which has been getting creaky of late: any day now and we'll be switching over to the new format, although hopefully it won't look that different. Among treats in store is a lengthy essay by Nicholas Mcaulay about Rupert Buxton... |
| Site update information : Thu May 3 22:53:27 2007 |
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At the time when I was writing my J M Barrie & the Lost Boys book back in 1978, the Buxton family was weathering upheaval, and no one could lay their hands on any material with respect to Rupert Buxton, who drowned with Michael Llewelyn Davies at Oxford in 1921. Now, thanks to the efforts of Nicholas McAulay, Sir Jocelyn Buxton has provided a photograph of Rupert, as well as a couple of Rupert's letters to his mother in which he mentions Michael. Nicholas has also tracked down a wonderfully evocative obituary for Rupert in the Harrow School paper, The Harrovian, which paints a very different portrait from the distinctly tainted one presented by Boothby:
“Rupert and Michael were very great friends. It is believed that Rupert gave his life to save Michael. One can hardly be sorry for two friends who died in this way. Both Rupert and Michael were much loved. ... Both were much truer lovers of nature than most people. They loathed artifice and pushfulness; they really carried their dislike of these things too far. ... Rupert was certainly very sensitive. He suffered from other people’s wrongs and woes. Like Michael he could be arrogant and egotistical, but like Michael again he had infinite pity for the poor and unhappy. Humble people always thought him a kind of saint as soon as they looked at him. He was a sort of gentle-hearted savage. The conditions of civilised life did not altogether suit him. He had a habit of spending odd days in London unknown to anyone, making friends with strange out-of-the-way people such as pavement artists and street hawkers. He was something of a Robin Hood and something of a Knight-errant. He was the first Head either of a House or of the School of Harrow who did not use his privilege of “whopping” (beating other boys) on a single occasion. ... Rupert and Michael did not go out of their way to please others, and they were by no means exceptionally useful members of Society in a material sense; but whoever came into contact with them recognised that they had in more than normal abundance the gift of personality. There glowed in them with unusual warmth a Promethean fire more valuable than words can describe. They were singularly pure by nature, and had never been so happy as during their last term.... Eton and Harrow have never produced two more charming and loveable boys. Either of them might have become an immortal genius or a martyr. God is love, and ‘greater love hath no man than this,’ that, like Rupert, ‘a man lay down his life for his friend.’ And no one doubts that if needs had been, Michael would have made the same sacrifice for Rupert.” The full article, as well as the rest of the material provided by Sir Jocelyn, can be found in the database - just enter a search for “Buxton” ... |
| Site update information : Tue Dec 26 19:08:34 2006 |
| The first chunk of Peter's Morgue is now up, a few hours short of our Christmas Day deadline - just click on the "Davies Family" page, then the "Morgue" button at bottom centre. Feel free to add comments about it on the Forum page... |
| Site update information : Mon Dec 4 22:22:25 2006 |
| After numerous delays (including getting married!) I'm finally taking time to continue transcribing Peter's "Morgue" - which at 1,200+ pages is no easy task! Part One will be uploaded this side of Christmas, with the rest hopefully completed by Easter (though I have to spend January and February in Nairobi, launching "Anno's Africa" - a project to help street kids express themselves creatively.) I'm also preparing more audio clips from the interviews I made back in the 1970s, so stay tuned! |
| Site update information : Thu Nov 23 14:38:01 2006 |
| Thanks to Dafydd, spam postings and links are now a thing of the past! |
| Site update information : Sun Oct 8 23:16:34 2006 |
| My mistake - the Alan Yentob program about "Peter Pan" on BBC1 TV is on October 17th, not October 10th. If anyone would like to hear the BBC Radio 4 piece I did (which they confusingly called "The Lost Boys"), please go to www.anno.co.uk, click on "Introduction" (at top left), then scroll down to the link. |
| Site update information : Sun Sep 10 17:15:54 2006 |
| A couple of upcoming programmes about Barrie that I've been involved with: a BBC Radio 4 thing called "The Lost Boys" that goes out on Wednesday September 13th @ 2.15pm (right after the Archers!), and a BBC1 TV "Imagine" special presented by Alan Yentob that goes out on October 10th. The BBC Radio prog will be accessible from their website in the week following transmission... |
| Site update information : Wed Jun 28 01:12:39 2006 |
| Thanks to a generous letter from Beinecke, it now seems that I can forge ahead with previous plans delayed owing to copyright issues. My only problem now is finding the time to do it in, but be assured I'll do my best to search it out! |
| Site update information : Tue Dec 6 15:26:52 2005 |
| Owing to copyright issues raised by the Beinecke Library, I'm afraid the publication of Peter's "Morgue" on this site will have to wait until this has been cleared up. |
| Site update information : Wed Oct 26 13:30:26 2005 |
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Delighted to report that Rose MacLennan's inspired adaptation of Barrie's 1930 gorgeously creepy tale "Farewell Miss Julie Logan" has garnered a bountiful crop of rave reviews from Edinburgh, where it premiered at this year's Festival:
"Celtic Circle have staged the novel as a consistent two-hander with Vincent Guy and Alex Dee representing the elder, more staid misinster and the younger, naive version respectively. Both actors fill out the roles magnificently. In fact, the juxtaposition between the two versions of the character plays nicely into Barrie's youthful themes. Filled with wry Scotch humour, 'Farewell Miss Julie Logan' is undoubtedly one of this year's hidden gems... an immensely enjoyable and engaging work" (Hairline) "Richard White's production has an admirable lightness of touch. The performers - accompanied by spectral violin, whispering voices and fleeting shadows - make as lovely job of it, just sombre enough to convince us they're genuinely unsettled by the events; just arch enough to acknowledge a strain of mocking humour." (Andrew Burnet in 'The Scotsman') "The poetry of the Scots dialect is intoxicating, as is the intensity of the acting. Dramatic monologue in the original novella is enhanced for the stage by casting two Reverend Adam Yestreens, young and old, rather than the character revealing himself through a single speaking voice. The division is seamlessly accomplished... " (Leah Milner, 'Fest') For those within striking distance might like to know that the Scottish National Trust have organised seven performances next month: at the House of Dun in Montrose on November 2nd and 3rd at 7pm (plus a matinee at 3pm on the 3rd), and the Laird of Glen Prosen in his home, Balnaboth House, on November 4th, 5th and 6th (with a matinee at 3pm on the 5th). Box office for the House of Dun: 01674 810 264; Balnaboth House: 01575 572141. |
| Site update information : Sun Oct 2 14:10:39 2005 |
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The Queen never, ever gives interviews, but in a documentary about the Royal Family made in 1991, she can be heard reminiscing while touring the library at Windsor: "[Barrie] was the most wonderful story teller. As children we used to go to tea and he'd tell the most wonderful stories. He just happened to be the sort of person who could tell children stories. ... And of course boringly if one was a small child one didn't realise what a good story-teller one was listening to. If only one had known." To read Barrie's unpublished account of their meeting, visit the database and type in "queen" ...
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| Site update information : Sun Sep 25 21:05:03 2005 |
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All of Barrie's notes that I transcribed back in the balmy days and nights of 1976 have now been uploaded - over 2,000 in total, derived from Barrie's 36 notebooks in the Beinecke Library at Yale University (= Nos 6-42). If anyone spots any mistakes - or suspects any mistranscriptions - please let me know. I have also uploaded "Sredni Vashtar" - a half-hour film I made with Alexander Puttnam in 1980. Alexander was the boy whom I quoted at the front of my biography, and to whom I would have dedicated the book had my mother not got there first. She too is in the film, which of course also owes a good deal to JMB. Finally, Peter's long-delayed Morgue will be uploaded by Christmas - that's a promise!
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| Site update information : Tue Sep 20 23:17:49 2005 |
| Peter Llewelyn Davies' monumental "Morgue" will finally be published on this site on December 9th, 2005. Anyone who has read my book - or indeed Janet Dunbar's - will know of the immense debt we owe to Peter, and it seems only right that his work should be published in its entirety. |
| Site update information : Sun Apr 3 04:31:19 2005 |
| All the photo and document captions in the database have now been checked and revised as far as Michael's death in 1921. The rest will be finished this week. To "read" the database from start to finsh, simply enter a percentage sign in the search field. If any errors are spotted, please do let us know. |
| Site update information : Mon Mar 7 01:33:28 2005 |
| All of Peter's letters to Barrie from the Western Front have now been transcribed and uploaded - the originals can be viewed in the database. |
| Site update information : Thu Feb 10 14:44:27 2005 |
| In view of ignorant and totally unsubstantiated accusations made about Barrie in recent months - notably one in the New York Post, another on Fox TV - I repeat my challenge of paying $10,000 to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in the event that ANYONE can produce one single shred of evidence that Barrie ever exhibited "inappropriate sexual behaviour" towards a living soul - or indeed that anyone who actually knew him ever claimed that he did. In the absence of such evidence, may I suggest that the press respect Barrie's innocence-until-proven-guilty, and bear in mind that such publicised gossip causes untold damage to the Hospital's greatest charitable legacy. If anyone wishes to judge Barrie's conduct for themselves, I suggest that instead of taking my word for it, they listen to the many audio clips on this site, in particular his adopted son Nico Llewelyn Davies, speaking in 1975: "Barrie had no sexual interest of any sort or kind. He was 100% neuter and 100% innocent, I'm absolutely certain of it." |
| Site update information : Sat Feb 5 16:00:17 2005 |
| Many thanks to David Skipper for the photos of Maude Adams that have now been added to the database, along with many other Peter Pans. To view them, simply enter "Maude Adams" in the search field - or "Peter Pan" to view all. |
| Site update information : Sat Feb 5 02:03:13 2005 |
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Dafydd has introduced a new type of forum - allegedly more user-friendly, and easier to track follow-up postings. It does require a user-name and password - as will the database - but I assure you the details will not be divulged to anyone. The old forum is still available for those who don't like the look of the new one!
We just added the BBC radio's centenary programme on the first night of Peter Pan to the audio bank for those who missed it, as well as Nina Boucicault's wonderfully evocative words about Barrie to the BBC in 1937. New scans are being added to the database all the time (enter "Hayley" for stills of my favourite Peter), and the search engine is now exactly the same as Google. Please let us know if you find any glitches, or have any suggestions. |
| Site update information : Mon Jan 10 00:20:44 2005 |
| Barrie's notebooks up to the end of 1904 have now been uploaded, including all notes relative to the first production of "Peter Pan". If any typos are spotted, please do let me know. |
| Site update information : Fri Dec 24 15:28:43 2004 |
| PROUD AND INSOLENT YOUTH, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! |
| Site update information : Fri Dec 3 20:25:45 2004 |
| Barrie's notebooks up to 1901 have now been uploaded, the vast majority relating to "Sentimental Tommy", "Tommy and Grizel" and "The Little White Bird". Incidentally, the LWB is being broadcast on BBC radio on Christmas Day. |
| Site update information : Thu Dec 2 02:59:03 2004 |
| Many more audio clips of Nico have now been uploaded, and the size of the letters in the database almost doubled for increased legibility. The database captions still await proof-reading - they were automatically generated from the filenames, and a few of them make curious reading. |
| Site update information : Fri Nov 12 21:49:18 2004 |
| Thanks to the Welsh Wizard, the database is finally up and running - you'll find it on the &c page. It works much the same as google - enter a name, names, dates etc, and all relevant scans containing those words/dates in the description will be pulled from the database. If you have any comments, criticisms or suggestions, feel free to voice them on the feedback page. |
| Site update information : Sun Nov 7 00:37:55 2004 |
| As some have already noticed, the database is up and running, or rather limping just at present until a few glitches have been ironed out. In principle you should be able to enter a name/names/dates in the search field, and all the relevant scans will appear as thumbnails. In the case of letters, the idea is that you click on the envelope to access the pages, or if no envelope then the first page, but at present subsequent pages are only accessible if there's an envelope - this should be fixed over the weekend. In time the search function will be more sophisticated, but for now it is fairly primitive, eg a search for "Nico Barrie" will produce all scans where Nico's name comes before Barrie's in the filename, thus displaying all Nico's letters to Barrie (but not visa vera, which would require "Barrie Nico" in the search box). A simple date - eg "1899" - will produce all scans (whether letters, photos or documents) for that year. Blah blah blah... the best thing is to experiment - you'll soon get the hang of it - and please feel free to report an anomalies, which will be fixed asap. |
| Site update information : Sat Oct 23 00:38:24 2004 |
| Barrie's notebooks #13 and #14 have now been uploaded. They were written in 1892 - the year Barrie met Mary Ansell - and read like a diary of their courtship.... |
| Site update information : Fri Oct 8 23:14:29 2004 |
| We've just uploaded another dozen or so audio clips to Nico's ever-expanding repetoire of Barrie anecdotes, including the immortal story "Mind that post!" Just click on Nico's tab on the audio page, then scroll down to 1978-01-01: "Nico talking about Barrie's many male friends, from Robert Falcon Scott to Bernard Freyberg VC" ... all the clips thereafter are new, until Sheridan Morley's interview. If you'd like to be notified of major new updates in future, please join our mailing list (which we faithfully promise never to divulge to any third party - note that there's no advertising on this site, and everything's free). "The Lost Boys" is now out on DVD/VHS, but only in PAL/Region 2. Please email DD video direct for news on when it will be available in NTSC/Region 1... |
| Site update information : Sun Sep 26 22:14:34 2004 |
| The Welsh Wizard has finally uploaded a forum (on the &c page), in which various subjects can be discussed and bounced around. Unlike other forums, you don't have to register or give us your email address. I'll do my best to answer specific questions, but please bear in mind I'm also doing 101 other things. Thanks Dafydd for all the work you've put in. |
| Site update information : Sat Sep 11 14:54:40 2004 |
| In reviewing Miramax's "Finding Neverland", New York Magazine comments that "there is no mention of Barrie’s habit of photographing nude young boys." To the best of my knowledge, Barrie only twice photographed naked boys: a couple of shots of George, Jack and Peter for "The Boy Castaways", given by Barrie to their parents; and one of Peter, aged 4, being chased with a towel by his mother on the beach at Rustington in full view of everyone. Does this constitute a "habit"? If Barrie were alive today, he'd surely be justified in taking such defamers to the legal cleaners. |
| Site update information : Fri Sep 3 02:41:00 2004 |
| The whole of "The Lost Boys" script has now been uploaded, accessible via the "&c" page. Peter's Morgue is still in preparation - a few glitches that need to be sorted out once I get back from Brittany.... |
| Site update information : Thu Aug 12 19:14:08 2004 |
| "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" now has an introduction, expanded from a piece I recently wrote for the Folio Society, who are publishing a centenial edition this Christmas. It can be found on the PP in KG page. Still working on the Morgue... |
| Site update information : Wed Aug 4 01:47:38 2004 |
| Apologies for the delay in publishing the Morgue, but we want to do Peter proud, and these things take time. Mine's rather crammed at the moment, what with PP's 100th birthday coming up, and 101 other things... but one of these fine days or nights, there it will be, without fanfare - so keep checking back; or, better still, add your name to our mailing list and we'll let you know when it's up. Elsewhere on the site, the Welsh wizard has found a way of incorporating facsimiles of illegible words into Barrie's notebooks - so if anyone cares to hazard a guess at his hieroglyphics, we'd be happy to hear from you. |
| Site update information : Sat Jul 17 03:05:23 2004 |
| The galleries are at last being overhauled, with captions added, as well as missing pages to letters and additional scans. Within the next fortnight we hope to have Part 1 of Peter's complete "Morgue" ready to upload, which will include links to original scans and photographs where relevant. This is how I wanted to see it published 25 years ago - an illustrated family scrapbook of words and photographs, narrated by the central character: Peter Llewelyn Davies. The "Morgue" - as he laconically named this family mausoleum of letters - is as much his own autobiography as it is a chronicle of his family's history. "Peter takes a book on his own," said Nico once. The Morgue is his book, which has been in my care for the past 25 years. Nico agreed that Peter's attitude would be "Publish none of it. But if you're going to publish it, publish all of it." Given that it's too late for the first - anyone who's read my book or seen The Lost Boys will know of the immense debt of gratitude I owe it - now seems as good a time as any to fulfil the second. |
| Site update information : Sat Jul 10 21:27:42 2004 |
| Notrebook #12 - with over 150 notes chronicling Barrie's courtship with Mary Ansell - has now been uploaded: go to JMB, then NOTEBOOKS, then scroll down. The rest of the notebooks will slowly follow, as and when I get a chance to edit them - along with 101 other things I'm meant to be doing, including putting on my take on Peter Pan this Christmas, hopefully at the Royal Court. "My take" amounts to Barrie's own first instinct - to have Hook played by Mrs Darling, in a play called "Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Hated Mothers" ... if you'd like to be kept updated, please join our mailing list. In answer to several inquiries, the 1978 BBC-TV The Lost Boys will be released on 27 September (VHS in PAL/NTSC; DVD in areas 1 & 2) - "However, this can be subject to change," cautions DD video. Heigh ho, t'was ever thus. Finally, Sotheby's are holding a Peter Pan auction on December 16th, which will include my entire Barrie collection. The sale will raise money for an indoor playground in the new wing of the Great Ormond Street Hospital, and my own contrribution is in memory of my son Anno. They're coming to take it away at the end of September, and the wrench will be painful. This treasure-trove has been a part of my life for the past quarter of a century, when I "bought" it off Nico (he effectively gave it to me). I've been its guardian ever since, but the time's rapidly approaching when I must finally let go of what was never really mine in the first place. But worry not - everything's been scanned, so nothing's going to disappear from view, and that's the important thing, particularly when it concerns a man who is so in danger of being misunderstood... |
| Site update information : Wed Jun 30 21:30:50 2004 |
| Barrie's notebooks #10 and #11 have now been uploaded, as well as the script of The Lost Boys, Part 1: We Set Out To Be Wrecked. There are also more audio clips of Nico, talking to the cast and crew of The Lost Boys before rehearsals began in January 1978. |
| Site update information : Thu Jun 24 01:58:17 2004 |
| The scripts of the BBC-TV "The Lost Boys" are gradually being uploaded on the &c page... |
| Site update information : Tue Jun 15 15:22:27 2004 |
| With Sheridan Morley's kind permission, we've uploaded the superb interview he made with Nico Llewelyn Davies in 1978, which can be found on the Audio/Nico page (scroll to the end). As the interview lasts half an hour, we've divided it into three parts for easier downloading. |
| Site update information : Sat Jun 12 21:37:32 2004 |
| Barrie's extensive Notebook #9 has now been added. He dated it 1888, the year he wrote his first novel "Better Dead". Like all his notebooks, it is filled with wonderful gems - "Liar may tell truth as broken clock the time" - as well as forebodings of marriage, his own still four years away - "Man dreaming married & screaming". These notebooks are not complete transcriptions, merely the ones that struck me while trying to decipher them. For every note that wound up in my book (or the BBC "Lost Boys" as voice-over), there were a dozen more I longed to use from the thousands I'd transcribed - 5,774 to be precise - a work that took me 6 solid months, incarcerated in my sister's basement, poring over Barrie's minute handwriting till I went cross-eyed. Even Nico had a hard time deciphering some of them. Anyone truly interested in Barrie would do well to trawl through them - there's enough material for a dozen more biographies... But be warned - my transcriptions of his minute scrawls are not infallible. The originals are in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library @ Yale University. To my knowledge no one else as gone through them all, and they have certainly never been published, either edited or complete. I suppose this amounts to my own personal selection. Happy hunting! |
| Site update information : Tue Jun 8 15:12:17 2004 |
| My mother, the actress Judy Campbell, died on D Day, June 6th. It was she who encouraged me to write "The Lost Boys" in the first place, and it was thus to her that I dedicated my book. My debt to her is as vast as my love, and it was with enormous pride that I read her obituary in today's London Times (which can be read on line at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-45-1137970,00.html). Thank you, darling Ma, for all the happiness you gave us, and for dying with us in your arms... xxx |
| Site update information : Thu Jun 3 01:48:23 2004 |
| We've added an edited version of a BBC Nationwide programme I took part in back in 1977, when I was still writing the Lost Boys. If this is your first visit to the site, it makes quite a painless introduction (particularly if you have broadband, where all the audio clips are more or less instant). The chief interest in the programme is Nico's superb contribution. You can find it by clicking on the audio tap, then scrolling down the "All Audio" until 1977-11-00. Alternatively, just do a CTRL + F if you're using windows and search for "Nationwide"... |
| Site update information : Mon May 31 03:38:32 2004 |
| Barrie always wrote "etcetera" as "&c" - our new page, with access to further pages at present under construction - including the long-promised database! |
| Site update information : Wed May 26 15:11:58 2004 |
| New audio clips going up every week, and expanded galleries imminent... |
| Site update information : Tue May 18 19:30:23 2004 |
| Thanks to the Welsh Wizard, the audio upload program is now working, and there are new audio clips from Gerrie Llewelyn Davies (Jack's widow) and Norma Douglas Henry - the sister of George's fiancee, Dauphine. On a separate note, DD video have now confirmed October 15th as the release date for "The Lost Boys" (the BBC-TV 4 hour trilogy), which will be available on DVD both in PAL and NTSC. For news on other fronts, see my blurb on the Feedback page... Thanks for visiting, and please feel free to give us feedback, either publicly (on the feedback page) or email us with any suggestions, grumbles, glitches, etc. |
| Site update information : Fri Mar 19 00:14:28 2004 |
| There are still a number of glitches on this site, but hopefully the Welsh webmaster will iron them out asap! |
| Site update information : Thu Mar 18 19:23:40 2004 |
| Were finally back up and running. It has been down for the past week due to our server providers letting us down. Hopefully this has not discouraged our visitors. I used this time to create a new look for the site. Enjoy, Webmaster. |
| Site update information : Wed Feb 11 12:40:57 2004 |
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"Anon: A Play" - Barrie's first draft of "Peter Pan" - is finally on-line! It has been lovingly (and painstakingly) transcribed from Barrie's handwritten original, and is here published for the first time [transcription copyright 2004 Great Ormond Street Hospital, see extended copyright notice]. Many thanks to the Welsh Wizard, and to Lissy for all her typing.
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