The Dark Side of Peter Pan: J.M. Barrie, the Man Who Couldn't Grow Up by Olivia Camozzi – A Book Recommendation for January
The Dark Side of Peter Pan: J.M. Barrie, the Man Who Couldn't Grow Up by Olivia Camozzi
The Dark Side of Peter Pan: J.M. Barrie, the Man Who Couldn't Grow Up by Olivia Camozzi was published by White Owl, an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd., in October 2024 and is the most recent of many books written about J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan. As I write this, I have in front of me a bookcase full of books about J.M. Barrie, and none of those books are ever far away from Peter Pan. Even chapters dealing with Barrie's early life and those dealing with the time towards the end of his life, when Peter Pan is not obviously there, he actually is. From the day that Barrie's older brother David died in a skating accident when he was still a child, meaning that he would never grow up, Peter Pan was at the core of who Barrie was and how his life would be lived.
The play Peter Pan and the subsequent book, Peter and Wendy, have been enjoyed by children and adults for well over 100 years. The true story of Sylvia and Arthur Llewelyn Davies and their five boys, George, Jack, Peter, Michael and Nico, whose lives became entangled with that of J. M Barrie, resulting in him creating the story of Peter Pan about them, is as fascinating now as it has ever been.
Here at the Daphne du Maurier website, a crucial additional interest in the story comes because Daphne du Maurier's father, Gerald, was Sylvia's younger brother, so Daphne and her sisters, Angela and Jeanne, were cousins to the five boys. Additionally, Gerald worked closely with Barrie in the theatre. In fact, he was the first actor to play the dual role of Mr Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Daphne and her sisters were a little younger than the Llewelyn Davies boys, and they continued to play the games of Peter Pan and act in their own performances of the play with Uncle Jim, as they called J.M. Barrie, even when their cousins were growing too big to be very involved any more.
The fact that a man as famous as J.M. Barrie should prefer the company of children and to have made friends with the boys by playing games with them in Kensington Gardens when the boys' Nanny was taking them for their daily walk and he was exercising his dog, seems strange to us now. Life, the way people behaved, and what they believed were very different towards the end of Queen Victoria's reign and the early days of the Edwardian era compared with now. Over time, much has been written about the appropriateness of Barrie's behaviour in relation to the boys.
In this new book, Olivia Camozzi aims to prove that the speculation and accusations surrounding Barrie and his nature come from a time of misunderstanding. Her book takes us right through J.M. Barrie's life but focuses mainly on the relationship he had with the Llewelyn Davies family and the creation of Peter Pan. She includes many references from letters between Barrie, members of the Llewelyn Davies family, and friends that they shared.
For anyone who does not already know the story of the lives of J. M. Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family, I should warn you that, despite the magic of Peter Pan, there is a great deal of sadness and tragedy in all their lives. Hence, the book is not always an easy read.
In the 21st century, there is a great awareness, mainly through the media, of paedophilia, principally stemming from the terrible case surrounding Jimmy Saville. Using modern opinions to make decisions about people in the past is not always realistic because we find it difficult to look at the late 19th and early 20th centuries without applying the views and opinions we have now. Olivia Camozzi concludes that J.M. Barrie was not a danger to the boys but was, in fact, asexual as well as suffering from what has come to be known as Peter Pan Syndrome. You must decide for yourselves if you agree with her.
I could not put this book down. It was so well written and so interesting that it held me captive until the last page. I highly recommend it to anyone who does not yet know the story of how Peter Pan came to be and also to anyone who already finds both the true story and the fiction fascinating.
The Dark Side of Peter Pan: J.M. Barrie, the Man Who Couldn't Grow Up by Olivia Camozzi.
Published by White Owl, an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd., 4th October 2024.
Hardback, Price £22.00.
© Ann Willmore January 2025.