Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sir J. M. Barrie
-
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.
The Washington Post published a strange and hilariously wrong bulletin heralding DB
's apparently non-existent pretensions to writing plays, and her equally non-existent engagement to J. M. Barrie
.
“J. M. Barrie to Wed Again: Daughter of Lord Esher Said to be Be-trothed to Novelist”. The Washington Post, p. 4.
Family and Intimate relationships
Dorothy Brett
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
Intertextuality and Influence
Beryl Bainbridge
An Awfully Big Adventure is set in 1950. Its title is the phrase which J. M. Barrie
's Peter Pan uses about death. Its protagonist, Stella, works for a Liverpool repertory company as BB
had...
Textual Production
Beryl Bainbridge
In 2003 BB
was at work on a detective novel currently titled Dear Brutus (a title borrowed from J. M. Barrie
, replacing the earlier The Might Have Been) and set in the 1970s...
Colles, Hester Janet. “A Gallery of Children”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 1245, p. 804.
804
Sales in...
Publishing
Lady Cynthia Asquith
She was persuaded to write these memoirs by Jimmie or James Barrie
, nephew of her late employer Sir James Barrie
, as a text for his recently-launched publishing firm
.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
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...
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.
LCA
's next book, Portrait of Barrie, blended two genres she had previously written, biography and personal memoir, in an account of her years as an employee of the famous playwright.
Cookman, Anthony Victor. “The Barrie Legend”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 2758, p. 791.
791
Residence
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Though Clouds was rich in memories for LCA
, she actually grew up in Stanway House, north-east of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. This was, she wrote, my very own home—the core of the world so...
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...
Travel
Lady Cynthia Asquith
From 1921 onwards, she and her children spent every August in possession of Stanway, a holiday funded by Barrie
, who stayed with them and paid rent for them to LCA
's mother, who...
Occupation
Lady Cynthia Asquith
During the war LCA
received the last of three successive offers of significant acting roles, despite her total lack of dramatic training. Towards Christmas 1909 she had taken part in a charity production at the...
Friends, Associates
Lady Cynthia Asquith
As well as her close relationships with Angela Thirkell
and Barrie
, LCA
built a significant friendship with the novelist D. H. Lawrence
(who has been seen as drawing her portrait in The Blind Man...
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.
