Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sir J. M. Barrie
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Standard Name: Barrie, Sir J. M.
Used Form: Sir James Barrie
Used Form: Sir James Matthew Barrie
SJMB
began his career in the late nineteenth century as a journalist, then moved to short stories, then novels, then plays. Those of his plays which survive in the repertoire, for professionals or amateurs, all involve departures from actuality, and purposeful suspension of the laws of space and time. Far and away the most famous, the basis of Barrie's continuing fame, is the adult play which became a children's classic, Peter Pan.
She probably met the handsome Watson
, a novelist who was, like her first husband, an Australian, in 1893 when he attended practices of the cricket team of which he and her second husband were...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
In less than three months LCA
lost in rapid succession her mother
, her eldest (institutionalised) son, her patron J. M. Barrie
, and her father
: it was Barrie's death which seemed to distress her most.
DB
's younger sister, Sylvia, later Lady Brooke
, born in 1885, is herself of no minor literary significance. She authored numerous works including two autobiographies, romance novels, and short stories, and claimed J. M. Barrie
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
LCA
's other sons, after John, were Michael, born on 25 July 1914 at Sussex Place, and Simon
, born on 20 August 1919 (after she had planned on having a girl to be...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
She had a romantic friendship during the years 1918 and 1919 with Desmond MacCarthy
, who was less than ten years her senior and a member of the Bloomsbury group.
DDM
's aunt Sylvia du Maurier
(later Sylvia Llewelyn Davies) became a friend of James Barrie
, whose Peter Pan was in part inspired by her five small sons.
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Barrie
was a famous writer making huge sums of money when LCA
met him. He was about the age of her father, had been unsuccessfully married, and doted on the idea of motherhood and on...
Employer
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Having much enjoyed nursing, LCA
did her first day as private secretary to the writer J. M. Barrie
, for a promised salary of four or five hundred pounds a year (which, however, proved to...
Education
Daisy Ashford
In the preface to Daisy's novel, The Young Visiters, J. M. Barrie
describes the young DA
as a girl who read everything that came her way, including, as the context amply proves, the grown-up...
Dedications
Sarah Tytler
It was dedicated to J. M. Barrie
, who was now famous as the author of Peter Pan.
