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J M Barrie

Curated for over 40 years by Andrew Birkin, the main content of this database is research material he gathered in the course of writing his 1978 BBC television series The Lost Boys, as well as his later biographical account, J M Barrie and the Lost Boys, while subsequent items were acquired through donation or purchase from numerous sources.

In addition to the original photographs and documents, all scanned prior to donating them to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2003, the database also contains hundreds of audio clips, taken from conversations recorded by Andrew in the 1970s with Nico Llewelyn Davies, Jack's widow Gerrie, Daphne du Maurier, Lord Boothby and many others. The database also includes Andrew's transcriptions of Barrie's notebooks from microfilm, purchased by the BBC from Beinecke, which give a wonderful insight into his working mind, as well as his keen albeit dour sense of humour.

A brief introduction to Barrie and his most famous creation - what Peter Llewelyn Davies called "that terrible masterpiece" - Peter Pan

J M Barrie gave the rights of Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) in 1929, and much of the work contained in this database has been sourced with the help of the hospital and with their permission.

Should anyone wish to make use of material on this site for commercial purposes, they should contact GOSH direct via their website.

Copyright in works by authors other than Barrie cited on this website naturally remain the property of the original authors/publishers or their estates.

Written permissions were obtained in 1978 by Andrew Birkin for all such works cited, and we trust that no objections will be made to publishing them on this website.