Better Dead

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus on 9th May, 1860. Barrie knew from an early age that he wished to be an author. His family wished otherwise. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. in April, 1882. His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "liked that Scotch thing" in Barrie’s work and he wrote several stories for them and later several novels based on his mother’s early life. Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first plays achieved little attention but in 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton. The character of ‘Peter Pan’ first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904. Peter Pan would overshadow all his other works. But his short stories cannot be overlooked. Indeed, from today’s vantage point they are excellent gems of social manners, of class and the way characters, sometimes in the most mundane of circumstances, react in the most surprising of ways.