Barrie, Sir James Matthew

Barrie, Sir James Matthew (1860-1937), Scottish dramatist and novelist, whose works, both theatrical and nontheatrical, stress his personal ironic view of life as a romantic adventure.

Barrie was born in Kirriemuir and educated at the University of Edinburgh. In 1885 he settled in London and wrote for the St James's Gazette and many other periodicals. His volumes Auld Licht Idylls (1888) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contained sketches of Scottish village life. The Little Minister (1891), a romantic novel of love and adventure, was followed by Sentimental Tommy (1895) and its sequel, Tommy and Grizel (1900).

Barrie's play Walker, London (1893) was a success at its London premiere. His next dramatic work was the comedy The Professor's Love Story (1894). Productions of Quality Street (1901), The Admirable Crichton (1902), and Little Mary (1903) preceded the first performance of Barrie's now world-famous fairy-tale play, Peter Pan (1904). In this fantasy, Barrie dealt with his two favourite themes, the retention of childish innocence and what he conceived to be the feminine instinct for motherhood. Other plays by Barrie include What Every Woman Knows (1908), A Kiss for Cinderella (1916), Dear Brutus (1917), Mary Rose (1920), and The Boy David (1936). Several musical versions of Peter Pan (1950, 1954, and 1979) and an animated feature film (1953) have been produced. On his death, Barrie bequeathed the British publishing rights to the Peter Pan characters to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children; after the hospital held a competition to find a new author for an official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean was published in 2006.

Barrie was made a baronet in 1913 and received the Order of Merit in 1922. He was appointed chancellor of the University of Edinburgh in 1930.