James Barrie was born into a Scottish weaver’s family in 1860. When Barrie was six, his 13-year-old brother died, leaving Barrie with an enduring image of the perfect child who would never grow up, and a melancholy mother, who then pinned all her hopes on James Barrie. From an early age Barrie was a passionate reader with dreams of being a writer. Deferring to his mother, he postponed this career to attend Edinburgh University but, in 1885, settled in London to work as a freelance journalist, novelist, and playwright. Barrie’s first taste of success came in 1891, with the publication of The Little Minister. Set in a fictionalized version of his birthplace, Kirriemuir, the novel established Barrie as a leading writer of the “Kailyard” school—fiction writers who sentimentally stereotyped the Scottish lowlanders. The following year, Barrie had great success with his play, Walker, London, in which he cast as lead actress Mary Ansell, the woman whom he would marry. In the next few years came several novels that dealt with Barrie’s major subject—the desirability of boyhood: Sentimental Tommy (1896), Tommy and Grizel (1900), and The Little White Bird (1902).
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