The Real Peter Pan

Illustrated with 47 photographs, this is the captivating and ultimately tragic story of he boy Michael, the one whom J. M. Barrie loved and filled with his fantasies before filleting him to use for his classic work, Peter Pan. All while Michael's parents looked on.

Arthur, the boy’s father, deeply concerned, dragged his family out of London to sidestep the writer’s cynical charms and controlling presence. But with Sylvia, Michael's mother, bathing narcissistically in the reflected glory of this most successful of rising playwrights, Barrie would not be kept at bay.

Here, then, is the heart-rending, real-life kidnap story behind the classic J. M. Barrie play: Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. Nor would Michael be allowed to. For even as Barrie made off to live with him at his smart apartment in London’s Strand, making him his teenage amanuensis, there would only ever be one way for Michael to break free…

As D. H. Lawrence, the celebrated novelist who knew both players, wrote at the time, ‘J. M. Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die.’