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Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist, the child of a family of small-town weavers, and best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in ''The Little White Bird''), then to write ''Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'', a "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. ''Peter Pan'' quickly overshadowed his previous work, although he continued to write successfully, and it became his best-known work, credited with popularising the name Wendy, which was very uncommon previously. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Barrie was made a baronet by George V in 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1922. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them. ==Childhood and adolescence== James Matthew Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, to a conservative Calvinist family. His father, David Barrie, was a modestly successful weaver. His mother, Margaret Ogilvy, had assumed her deceased mother's household responsibilities at the age of eight. Barrie was the ninth child of ten (two of whom died before he was born), all of whom were schooled in at least the three Rs, in preparation for possible professional careers. His siblings were; Alexander (1842 – 16 July 1914), Mary Ann (1845–1918), Jane (14 March 1847 – 31 August 1895), Elizabeth (12 March 1849 – 1 April 1851), Agnes (23 Dec 1850–1851), David Ogilvy (30 January 1853 – 29 January 1867), Sarah (3 June 1855 – 1 November 1913), Isabella (4 January 1858 – 1902) and Margaret (9 July 1863 – 1936). He was a small child and drew attention to himself with storytelling.〔Alistair Moffat (2012). "Britain's Last Frontier: A Journey Along the Highland Line". Chapter 9. p. 1. Birlinn〕 He only grew to 5 ft 3 in. (161 cm) according to his 1934 passport.〔Birkin, Andrew: J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys Constable, 1979; revised edition, Yale University Press, 2003〕 When he was 6 years old, Barrie's next-older brother David (his mother's favourite) died two days before his 14th birthday in an ice-skating accident. This left his mother devastated, and Barrie tried to fill David's place in his mother's attentions, even wearing David's clothes and whistling in the manner that he did. One time Barrie entered her room, and heard her say "Is that you?" "I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to", wrote Barrie in his biographical account of his mother, ''Margaret Ogilvy'' (1896), "and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me. Barrie's mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her.〔Birkin, Andrew: ''J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys'' Constable, 1979; revised edition, Yale University Press, 2003〕 Eventually Barrie and his mother entertained each other with stories of her brief childhood and books such as ''Robinson Crusoe'', works by fellow Scotsman Walter Scott, and ''The Pilgrim's Progress''.〔 At the age of 8, Barrie was sent to The Glasgow Academy, in the care of his eldest siblings Alexander and Mary Ann, who taught at the school. When he was 10 he returned home and continued his education at the Forfar Academy. At 14, he left home for Dumfries Academy, again under the watch of Alexander and Mary Ann. He became a voracious reader, and was fond of Penny Dreadfuls, and the works of Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. At Dumfries he and his friends spent time in the garden of Moat Brae house, playing pirates "in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of ''Peter Pan''".〔''McConnachie and J. M. B.: Speeches of J. M. Barrie'', Peter Davies, 1938〕 They formed a drama club, producing his first play ''Bandelero the Bandit'', which provoked a minor controversy following a scathing moral denunciation from a clergyman on the school's governing board.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「J. M. Barrie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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