.jpg?w=1)
Details
BARRIE, Sir James Matthew (1860-1937). Peter Pan or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1928.
8o. Original plain grey printed wrappers; blue quarter morocco folding case. Provenance: Gordon A. Block, Jr. (sale Parke Bernet, 29 January 1974, lot 7).
PROOF COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE PLAY, REVISED AND ANNOTATED BY BARRIE THROUGHOUT THE 23-PAGE DEDICATION. Some 80 words or punctuation marks are added in manuscript, with Barrie's most extensive revision made on p. xxvii in a passage relating to Tinker Bell. His original printed sentence reads: "This greeting between the two [Wendy and Tinker Bell] somehow suggested to me a line that afterwards appeared in the play, 'When the first baby laughed for the first time the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.'" Barrie has excised this line and added in manuscript: "Perhaps she would have bored her way in at last whether we wanted her or not. It may be that ever Peter did not bring her to the Neverland of his free will, but merely pretended to do so because she would not stay away."
Barrie dedicates the play "To the Five," the five Llewellyn Davies sons whom he met around 1902. In dedicating the play to the five Llewelyn Davies boys, he wrote: "I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produce a flame. I am sometimes asked who and what Peter is, but that is all he is, the spark I got from you." Barrie's relationship with the boys grew strong over the years, and he became their guardian on the deaths of their parents. At the dedication's opening, Barrie has revised a more effusive sentiment which originally read: "I hope, my dear sirs, that you will accept this dedication with your friend's love; and indeed, as all the other plays of mine that I care to print are now being published, I beg you, in memory of what we have been to each other, to allow me to throw in the lot." He has truncated this sentence to read, more simply and with less wide-reaching implications: "I hope, my dear sirs, that in memory of what we have been to each other you will accept this dedication with your friend's love."
The play Peter Pan was first produced in 1904 though the script remained unpublished until this edition was prepared in 1928, adding extensive stage directions and the lengthy dedication. The dedication was revelatory: in it Barrie questions his own authorship of the work and symbolically gives back to the Llewelyn Davies boys both their identities and their authorship of Peter Pan. This first edition appeared in Hodder & Stoughton's collected edition of J.M. Barrie's plays, designated the "Uniform Edition" on the half-title.
8
PROOF COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE PLAY, REVISED AND ANNOTATED BY BARRIE THROUGHOUT THE 23-PAGE DEDICATION. Some 80 words or punctuation marks are added in manuscript, with Barrie's most extensive revision made on p. xxvii in a passage relating to Tinker Bell. His original printed sentence reads: "This greeting between the two [Wendy and Tinker Bell] somehow suggested to me a line that afterwards appeared in the play, 'When the first baby laughed for the first time the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.'" Barrie has excised this line and added in manuscript: "Perhaps she would have bored her way in at last whether we wanted her or not. It may be that ever Peter did not bring her to the Neverland of his free will, but merely pretended to do so because she would not stay away."
Barrie dedicates the play "To the Five," the five Llewellyn Davies sons whom he met around 1902. In dedicating the play to the five Llewelyn Davies boys, he wrote: "I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produce a flame. I am sometimes asked who and what Peter is, but that is all he is, the spark I got from you." Barrie's relationship with the boys grew strong over the years, and he became their guardian on the deaths of their parents. At the dedication's opening, Barrie has revised a more effusive sentiment which originally read: "I hope, my dear sirs, that you will accept this dedication with your friend's love; and indeed, as all the other plays of mine that I care to print are now being published, I beg you, in memory of what we have been to each other, to allow me to throw in the lot." He has truncated this sentence to read, more simply and with less wide-reaching implications: "I hope, my dear sirs, that in memory of what we have been to each other you will accept this dedication with your friend's love."
The play Peter Pan was first produced in 1904 though the script remained unpublished until this edition was prepared in 1928, adding extensive stage directions and the lengthy dedication. The dedication was revelatory: in it Barrie questions his own authorship of the work and symbolically gives back to the Llewelyn Davies boys both their identities and their authorship of Peter Pan. This first edition appeared in Hodder & Stoughton's collected edition of J.M. Barrie's plays, designated the "Uniform Edition" on the half-title.