Curiosidades

From 1928 onward all royalties from the sales of "Peter Pan" were donated to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 1987 (50 years after Barrie's death), when normally royalty rights would have expired, by a special act of Parliament royalties were allowed to continue going to the hospital in perpetuity. Many countries dispute the right to institute perpetual royalties, considering Peter Pan to be in the public domain, and refuse to enforce the copyright within their boundaries.

Based the character of Captain Hook on a minister in East Sussex named Rev. John Maher, who was later revealed to have been a vicious pirate and had a hook for a hand.

When he was six years old his next-older brother David, whom he knew was his mother's favorite, 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. Barrie's mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her. This undoubtedly influenced James' most famous character, Peter Pan.

After the death of two of Barrie's close friends, Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies, he adopted their five sons: Peter, Jack, George, Michael and Nicholas. Barrie was very close to all the boys, and was heartbroken when Michael drowned in 1921 and George was killed in battle in 1915 during World War I. Their brother, Peter Llewelyn-Davies, committed suicide on April 5, 1960.

His manager and close friend Charles Frohman was among those who died on the SS Lusitania when it was struck by a torpedo and he refused a lifeboat. When faced with his demise, he paraphrased Barrie's character Peter Pan and said, "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us".

George Bernard Shaw was his neighbor in London.

He founded an amateur cricket team for his friends. The people who played on the team at various times included such luminaries as H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G.K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne, E.W. Hornung, A.E.W. Mason, Walter Raleigh, E.V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, Owen Seamons, Bernard Partridge, Augustine Birrell, Paul Du Chaillu, Henry Herbert La Thangue, George Cecil Ives, his adopted son George Llewelyn Davie and the son of Alfred Lord Tennyson. The team was called the Allahakbarries, under the mistaken belief that "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" in Arabic (rather than "God is great").

The son of a weaver, educated in Scotland.

Played by Johnny Depp in Marc Forster's Em Busca da Terra do Nunca (2004) (about the creation of "Peter Pan"), which also starred Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewellyn-Davies and Dustin Hoffman as Charles Frohman. By coincidence, Hoffman had played Capt. Hook in Steven Spielberg's Hook: A Volta do Capitão Gancho (1991), which depicted an adult Peter Pan.

Barrie raised 5 surrogate sons, and acted as a surrogate "uncle" to several other children. By all accounts, he liked kids. Following his death, there were rumors that he was sexually interested in children. Barrie's surrogate son Nicholas Llewelyn Davies (1903 - 1980) vehemently denied this. According to Nicholas, Barrie never felt sexual attraction to anyone: "man, woman, or child".

Novelist and playright.

He was awarded a Baronetcy in the 1913 King's Birthday Honours List for his services to literature. In the 1922 King's New Year Honours List, he was awarded the Order of Merit for his services to literature.

Awarded honorary degrees by the Universities of St Andrews (1898), Edinburgh (1909), Oxford (1926) and Cambridge (1930).

His family initially tried to get him to become a minister.

Barrie's last major play, "Mary Rose", dating from 1920, was much admired by Alfred Hitchcock, who tried to set up a film version in 1964. Jay Presson Allen, screenwriter of his then-recent "Marnie", completed a first-draft screenplay, but Universal, with whom Hitchcock had recently entered into a long-term partnership, felt that it would be totally uncommercial and vigorously discouraged the project. Hitchcock liked to tell interviewers that it was actually written into his contract that he couldn't make a film of "Mary Rose" for Universal.

Barrie reportedly named Peter Pan after his surrogate son Peter Llewelyn Davies (1897-1960).

Barrie's surrogate son Nicholas Llewelyn Davies (1903-1980) worked as a publisher.

Barrie maintained a longtime correspondence with fellow novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), though the two men never met in person.

Barrie was a founding member of the Authors Cricket Club (1892-1912). It was an amateur English cricket club whose members were professional writers. Among his teammates were Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), and A. A. Milne (1882-1956). The team eventually disbanded because many members were too old to keep playing, and they failed to recruit younger replacements.

From 1917 to 1937, Barrie's secretary was Lady Cynthia Asquith (1887 -1960). She was a daughter-in-law of prime minister H. H. Asquith, and a novelist in her own right.

In the 1930s, Barrie was asked to narrate stories to the young daughters of Albert, Duke of York (the future king George VI). The two girls were Elizabeth II (1926-) and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (1930-2002).

In 1901, Barrie produced an album of captioned photographs. He had the boys of the Llewelyn Davies family acting out a pirate adventure, titled "The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island". The album was intended for private use by Barrie and the boys' family. The only surviving copy of this album has been preserved at the "Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library" of Yale University..

When Barrie requested a divorce in 1909, the press was expected to cover the scandalous details. However, several of Barrie's supporters run a campaign in which they tried to convince newspaper editors to respect Barrie's privacy. This campaign was mostly successful, and only three newspapers covered the story.

When raising the Llewelyn Davies boys, Barrie was forced to share their custody with their former nurse Mary Hodgson. He and Hodgson reportedly disliked each other, but had to co-operate according to the will of the boys' mother.

In 1912, a statue of Peter Pan was erected in Kensington Gardens. Barrie disliked it, because it supposedly failed to capture the spirit of the character. In his words: "It doesn't show the devil in Peter".

Barrie's surrogate son Jack Llewelyn Davies (1894-1959) was an officer in the Royal Navy, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Barrie's surrogate son Peter Llewelyn Davies (1897-1960) became a publisher, and owned his own publishing company. He published some of the works of his first cousin Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989).

Barrie's surrogate son Michael Llewelyn Davies (1900-1921) drowned while swimming in the Sandford Lasher, a hazardous pool of water downstream. His lover Rupert Buxton drowned while trying to rescue him.

His moral message of the 'Peter Pan' play is: "Growing up is a necessary part of life, rather than something to be avoided".

There is claim that he got the name of the Peter Pan character 'Wendy', when the young daughter (named Margaret) of his poet friend, William Ernest Henley, tried to call Barrie 'Friendly' but she misspoke it as 'Fwendy'.