The Legacy of Neverland - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens , livre ebook

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34 pages

English

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Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens reveals the magical life of the boy who wouldn’t grow up when he is yet to meet Wendy Darling. J. M. Barrie’s treasured character embarks on his earliest adventures in this charming children’s novel.

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, is one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature. Long before his escapades with pirates, mermaids, and Lost Boys, he first appeared in our storybooks as a small baby. Escaping from his family home, Peter lives with the birds and fairies in the magical depths of London’s Kensington Gardens. An ever curious and daring child, he explores the fascinating world around him, learning how to fly with his fairy friends. This wondrous tale captures the innocence and imagination of childhood.

First published in 1906, most of the text in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was originally published in J. M. Barrie’s novel The Little White Bird (1902). Over a century later, this magical read is still loved by people of all ages.

Sujets

Jeunesse Aventure

Classiques Jeunesse

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Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	26 avril 2023
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781528798822
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Legacy of Neverland
PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
A Magical Adventure in London's Royal Park
By
J. M. BARRIE

First published in 1902

Copyright © 2023 Read & Co. Children's
This edition is published by Read & Co. Children's, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk

Contents
J. M. Barrie
I THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS
II PETER PAN
III THE T HRUSH'S NEST
IV L OCK-OUT TIME
V THE LITTLE HOUSE
VI PETER'S GOAT

J. M. Barrie
James Matthew Barrie was born on 9th May 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angu s, Scotland.
He was the ninth of ten children (two of whom died before his birth), born to Calvinist parents, David Barrie and Margaret Ogilvy. Barrie was sent to Glasgow Academy at the age of eight, where he was looked after by two of his older siblings, Alexander and Mary, who taught there. He went on to study at the Forfar Academy, and then at Dumfries Academy. He became an avid reader of penny dreadfuls and works by authors such as Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. This love of fiction led Barrie (along with his friends at Dumfries), to form a drama club in which he produced his first play, Bandelero the Bandit.
Barrie's desire to follow a dramatic career was not approved of by his parents, who wished him to go into a profession such as the ministry. However, they arrived at a compromise when he agreed to attend University, but would study literature. He received his M.A. From Edinburgh Univers ity in 1882.
After a brief spell as a staff journalist at the Nottingham Journal, Barrie returned to Kirriemuir and began writing stories based on the tales that his mother had told him about the town. He submitted these to the newspaper St. James's Gazette in London, who liked his work. Barrie consequently ended up writing a series, which served as the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1890), and The Little Mini ster (1891).
Alongside his novels, Barrie began to produce many works for the theatre. His first venture into the medium was a biography of Richard Savage which he co-wrote with H. B. Marriott. This was only performed once and was critically panned. However, his next theatrical work Ibsen's Ghos t (or T oole Up-to-Date ) (1891), a parody of Henrik Ibsen's dramas Hedda Gabler and Ghosts , was much more favourab ly received.
It was during his third play that Barrie met his future wife, the young actress, Mary Ansell. The pair were married on 9th July 1894. Unfortunately, Mary had an affair which Barrie learned of in 1909, and the couple later divorced. They had no childr en together.
Barrie was very well connected in literary circles. One testament to this was his role in founding an amateur cricket team that included members such as: Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, and G. K. Chesterton.
Barrie's lasting legacy to the world was his creation of Peter Pan. This character first appeared in the T he White Little Bird, serialised in the United States, and then published in a single volume in the UK in 1902. The work that catapulted his character to become a household name was Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up . This was first performed as a play on 27th December 1904, but in 1911 Barrie adapted it into the novel Pete r and Wendy.
Interestingly, the name Wendy was not in common use at the time, but his work popularised it. The name was actually inspired by the daughter of friend and poet William Ernest Henley, who called Barrie 'Friendy', but could not pronounce her Rs very well and so it came out as 'Fwendy'.
Upon his death, Barrie left the copyright for Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. He died on 19th June 1937, of pneumonia. Barrie is buried next to his parents and two of his siblings, at Kirriemuir, Angu s, Scotland.

I
THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS
You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens. They are in London, where the King lives, and I used to take David there nearly every day unless he was looking decidedly flushed. No child has ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that, if you are as small as David, you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep from twelve to one, you could most likely see the wh ole of them.
The Gardens are bounded on one side by a never-ending line of omnibuses, over which your nurse has such authority that if she holds up her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses with you in safety to the other side. There are more gates to the Gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go in at, and before you go in you speak to the lady with the balloons, who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she may venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one moment, the balloons would lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one, because the old one had let go, and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go, he wished he had been t here to see.
The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with millions and hundreds of trees; and first you come to the Figs, but you scorn to loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who are forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so named, according to legend, because they dress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs by David and other heroes, and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal section of the Gardens when I tell you that cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a rebel Fig climbs over the fence into the world, and such a one was Miss Mabel Grey, of whom I shall tell you when we come to Miss Mabel Grey's gate. She was the only really cel ebrated Fig.
We are now in the Broad Walk, and it is as much bigger than the other walks as your father is bigger than you. David wondered if it began little, and grew and grew, until it was quite grown up, and whether the other walks are its babies, and he drew a picture, which diverted him very much, of the Broad Walk giving a tiny walk an airing in a perambulator. In the Broad Walk you meet all the people who are worth knowing, and there is usually a grown-up with them to prevent them going on the damp grass, and to make them stand disgraced at the corner of a seat if they have been mad-dog or Mary-Annish. To be Mary-Annish is to behave like a girl, whimpering because nurse won't carry you, or simpering with your thumb in your mouth, and it is a hateful quality; but to be mad-dog is to kick out at everything, and there is some satisfact ion in that.
If I were to point out all the notable places as we pass up the Broad Walk, it would be time to turn back before we reach them, and I simply wave my stick at Cecco Hewlett's Tree, that memorable spot where a boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, looking for it, found twopence. There has been a good deal of excavation going on there ever since. Farther up the walk is the little wooden house in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful story of the Gardens than this of Marmaduke Perry, who had been Mary-Annish three days in succession, and was sentenced to appear in the Broad Walk dressed in his sister's clothes. He hid in the little wooden house, and refused to emerge until they brought him knickerbockers w ith pockets.
You now try to go to the Round Pond, but nurses hate it, because they are not really manly, and they make you look the other way, at the Big Penny and the Baby's Palace. She was the most celebrated baby of the Gardens, and lived in the palace all alone, with ever so many dolls, so people rang the bell, and up she got out of her bed, though it was past six o'clock, and she lighted a candle and opened the door in her nighty, and then they all cried with great rejoicings, 'Hail, Queen of England!' What puzzled David most was how she knew where the matches were kept. The Big Penny is a statu e about her.
Next we come to the Hump, which is the part of the Broad Walk where all the big races are run; and even though you had no intention of running you do run when you come to the Hump, it is such a fascinating, slide-down kind of place. Often you stop when you have run about half-way down it, and then you are lost; but there is another little wooden house near here, called the Lost House, and so you tell the man that you are lost and then he finds you. It is glorious fun racing down the Hump, but you can't do it on windy days because then you are not there, but the fallen leaves do it instead of you. There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.
From the Hump we can see the gate that is called after Miss Mabel Grey, the Fig I promised to tell you about. There were always two nurses with her, or else one mother and one nurse, and for a long time she was a pattern-child who always coughed off the table and said, 'How do you do?' to the other Figs, and the only game she played at was flinging a ball gracefully and letting the nurse bring it back to her. Then one day she tired of it all and went mad-dog, and, first, to show that she really was mad-dog, she unloosened both her boot-laces an