Peter Pan (character)

Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, he spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland.

Peter Pan has become a cultural icon symbolising youthful innocence and escapism. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, The Little White Bird (1902, with chapters 13–18 published in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens in 1906), and the West End stage play Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904, which expanded into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy), the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie's works. These include several films, television series and many other works.

Barrie commissioned a statue of Peter Pan by the sculptor George Frampton, which was erected overnight in Kensington Gardens on 30 April 1912 as a surprise to the children of London. Six other statues have been cast from the original mould and displayed around the world. In 2002, he featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail on the centenary of Barrie's creation of the character.

Barrie gifted the copyright to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in 1929. Whilst the works are now in the public domain, the hospital maintains the right to collect royalties from adaptations in the United Kingdom thanks to a special amendment to the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

Peter Pan first appeared as a character in Barrie's The Little White Bird (1902), a novel for adults. In chapters 13–18, titled "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", Peter is a seven-day-old baby and has flown from his nursery to Kensington Gardens in London, where the fairies and birds taught him to fly. He is described as "betwixt-and-between" a boy and a bird. Barrie returned to the character of Peter Pan, putting him at the centre of his stage play titled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered on 27 December 1904 at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. Following the success of the 1904 play, Barrie's publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted the Peter Pan chapters of The Little White Bird and published them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie later adapted and expanded the 1904 play's storyline as a novel, which was published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy.

J. M. Barrie may have based the character on his older brother, David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before his 14th birthday. His mother and brother thought of him as forever a boy. A later inspiration was his friendship with the Llewelyn Davies boys, as described in Barrie's Dedication to the first edition of the play: "I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produced a flame. That is all he is, the spark I got from you."

Barrie never described Peter's appearance in detail, even in his novel, leaving it to the imagination of the reader and the interpretation of anyone adapting the character. In the play, Peter's outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. In the book and the play, he also carries a dagger for cutting and a sword for fighting, although in some versions he only has one of the two. His name and playing the flute or pan pipes suggest that he is based on the Greek god and mythological character Pan. Barrie mentions in Peter and Wendy that Peter Pan still had all his "first teeth". He describes him as a "lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees". In The Little White Bird (1902) and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), he is seven days old.

Traditionally, the character has been played on stage by a female actor, but can also be played by a male actor. In the original productions in the UK, Peter Pan's costume was a reddish tunic and dark green tights, such as that worn by Nina Boucicault in 1904. This costume is exhibited at Barrie's Birthplace. The similar costume worn by Pauline Chase (who played the role from 1906 to 1913) is displayed in the Museum of London. Early editions of adaptations of the story also depict a red costume but a green costume (whether or not made of leaves) becomes more usual from the 1920s, and more so later after the release of Disney's animated movie.