This would seem to be another pivotal classic children's genre novel but, in this instance, it simply isn't that straightforward.

The character of Peter Pan first appeared in a novel by J. M. Barrie called 'The Little White Bird', which was published in 1902 and intended for adults. However, he's hardly the Peter Pan we know, this one born in London but flying out of his window when he was only a week old, thinking himself a bird. He flies to Kensington Gardens and to an island in the Serpentine where he's told by a crow named Solomon Caw that he's neither bird nor human but what he calls a "Betwixt-and-Between". There are fairies and a girl called Maimie Mannering, who gives him an imaginary goat, but none of the elements that you're no doubt expecting show up.

They showed up a couple of years later in a play titled 'Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up'. The Peter in the play is older, although still very young, and he lives in Neverland where he's the leader of a gang of Lost Boys who battle his nemesis, Captain Hook. The character of Maimie evolved into Wendy Darling, who he invites to Neverland, where his fairy companion Tinkerbell is jealous of her. Sound familiar? This play was staged at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End of London with the thirty-seven-year-old Nina Boucicault playing Peter, following the tradition of pantomime, given that children weren't legally allowed on stage at that point.

So are we really remembering a play without realising it? Not at all, and we're not remembering 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' either. That was the first dedicated 'Peter Pan' book, released in 1906, but it mostly contained the 'Peter Pan' chapters from 'The Little White Bird', along with a few tweaks for the new edition. Neither are we remembering 'The Peter Pan Picture Book', which was the first adaptation of the play, in 1907, but adapted by Daniel O'Connor not J. M. Barrie, who had created the character and written the play.

What we're remembering, likely via various visual adaptations of the story, is 'Peter and Wendy', the second adaptation of the play, this time into novel form by Barrie himself. It was released in 1911 as 'Peter and Wendy', then abridged in 1915 by May Byron as 'Peter Pan and Wendy', which, rather frustratingly, is the only old copy that I have in my collection. The list of 'Peter Pan' books before the title page in that edition is wild, listing nine titles that boil down to only two under a variety of titles in a variety of editions with a variety of illustrators. Eventually, of course, it was renamed again to simply 'Peter Pan', the title of the 1980 edition I'm actually reading. Whew.

I've read 'Peter Pan' but so long ago that I ought to have forgotten it. Instead, it's pervaded pop culture to the degree that I remembered most of it but forgot the tone Barrie employs and some rather crucial details, most of them regarding the character of Peter Pan himself. He's hardly an appropriate role model for readers, though it seems like he ought to be.

He's incredibly stubborn for one thing, not unable to grow up but simply refusing to do so, even as he's offered the chance of a normal life. He's also terrible at remembering things. On the journey to Neverland, there are points when he flits off somewhere, comes back again and finds that he's forgotten who everyone is, so they have to rekindle his memory. He's a definition of "living in the moment". What's more, it's a very long journey, so the Darlings fall asleep mid-flight. Peter does save them, as any hero would, but it's noted that he tends to do so at the very last minute, all for a more powerful effect.

The real role model here is Wendy, who follows Peter to Neverland and enjoys her time there but eventually goes home, where she grows up, gets married and has her own child. Here, however, it seems as if Peter might have got it right. He lives on his own terms, always, while Wendy seems to have fallen quickly into the stereotypes of her gender and so becomes a character defined by her relationships to everyone else, which even as a child translate to "mother", the role she adopts in Neverland to the Lost Boys.

I did mention that she enjoys her time in Neverland and that's the impression we're given, but I'd love to ask her if she truly did. After all, she spends her time cooking, sewing and teaching, rather than going outside and simply having fun, and is responsible for ensuring that the Lost Boys go to bed at an appropriate time. It's no surprise that it's Wendy who eventually becomes the one who decides to go home. The only actual fun it seems like she has is to rekindle her acquaintance with the pet wolf from her Neverland, not that it has any more fun in this novel than she does.

I remembered that 'Peter Pan' is built on the concept of make-believe but I'd forgotten what that truly means. For a start, there isn't Neverland, there are Neverlands, plural, dreamed by children and brought into reality by playing there. All three Darlings have built their own Neverlands with their own unique features. However, when they all follow Peter to Neverland, it turns out to be a sprawling island that includes all three. This perfectly fits the mindset of playing make-believe, in which everything can change on a dime just because someone wishes it.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. The Darlings live in London and have three children—Wendy, John and Michael—who are taken care of by their nanny, a Newfoundland called Nana. While that didn't surprise me, the way Barrie explains it did. This London seems to be just like the real one in every way, except that the Darlings can treat Nana as a nanny and so she becomes that, ably and effectively. Similarly, one of Mrs. Darling's daily tasks is to tidy up her children's minds. That's an interesting phrasing and Barrie expands on it, explaining that it's just like tidying up their rooms.

It's all delightfully off, a glorious way to reimagine authority roles. Combined with Barrie's lightly conversational tone, this becomes a book that would be very easy to read to children. Just as he's chatting with his readers, so too would anyone reading aloud do to theirs. It's participatory stuff and it's echoed by sections where Wendy reads to the Lost Boys and they constantly interrupt to connect with her story.

I was rather shocked at how far Barrie takes this, though. At one point, he realises that he has far too many stories to tell for the stage time or page count, so actually tosses a coin to decide which one to go with. Ah, 'The Mermaid's Lagoon' it is and off he goes into that one. He also calls out an important delineation, though he doesn't expound on it fully. Everything here is built on the logic of make-believe but Barrie is keen to point out in the text that this novel is not "a fanciful story". In fanciful stories, characters can talk to animals and the animals can talk back. Not here, even if the Lost Boys can eat feasts or save lives just by wishing it.

Anyway, it's while Mrs. Darling is tidying up her children's minds one night that Peter Pan flies in and his connection to her family begins. "Neverland had come too near," she realises. While Nana grabs his shadow and Mrs. Darling rolls it up and stores it in a drawer, Peter comes back with Tink to recover it and that's when the children follow him to Neverland, suddenly able to fly. There's a firm ecosystem in play, which is perfectly illustrated by a sort of pantomime procession. It's trivial to see how that would work on stage, the sort of touch that guaranteed the play's success.

There are six Lost Boys, in addition to Peter himself as leader: Tootles, Nibs, Slightly, Curly and a pair of twins who are only ever collectively known as Twins. They march in search of Peter. Behind them, a host of pirates, led by Captain Hook, are on their trail. In turn, there's a band of redskins, to use Barrie's term, chasing the pirates, and a host of beasts chasing the redskins. Behind them all is the crocodile, ticking along because of the clock he's swallowed, in search of Captain Hook, a tasty delicacy to him, because he's already eaten the pirate's arm.

I'd forgotten that there are three separate absolutely iconic lines in 'Peter Pan', each of which is surely up there on the all-time classics list. The first is the very first line of the novel: "All children, except one, grow up." We're six words in and Barrie has already achieved more than most entire books manage, however many pages they have. The second shows up before Neverland, as Wendy asks Peter for his address. Not having one, he replies, "Second to the right, and then straight on till morning." But wait, as they say, there's more! Barrie adds a third, after throwing Peter into a cliffhanger of a situation stranded on Marooner's Rock. He saves Wendy by letting her fly away on Michael's kite but then settles down with "To die will be an awfully big adventure." That's a gem.

I'd forgotten the backgrounds that are hinted out throughout. The redskins never get any, even though they're treated well and, after Peter saves Tiger Lily from certain death, become allies in the Lost Boys' campaign against the pirates. However, Peter gets a little background, enough to suggest that this isn't merely a redux of the 'Peter Pan' story from its original, but a sequel to it. Captain Hook, it seems, used to be Blackbeard's bosun and his many men often refer to 'Treasure Island'. And the Lost Boys are defined as babies who fell out of their prams but weren't claimed in the passage of a week.

I'd also forgotten moments that play much older than the obviously very young age intended for readers. The fights are one, of course, because characters actually die of their wounds, Hook has his hook because Peter cut off his arm in a swordfight and the crocodile does indeed get a hearty meal by the end of the story. That's pretty gruesome! There's a moment when Peter falls asleep and "some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy." Wow! That's not remotely what I expected to see in 'Peter Pan'!

However, that's nothing on the introduction we're given to Tinker Bell, in the Darlings' bedroom. She appears "exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage." Damn! That sounds more like Jessica Rabbit than it does Tink! Also, "She was slightly inclined to embonpoint." I thought that was a ballet pose. It isn't. It means plumpness, "especially when voluptuous", to quote the American Heritage Dictionary. No wonder she has a nook in the Lost Boys' underground lair with a curtain to draw closed when she needs to get changed!

I guess there's rather a lot that I'd forgotten, even though I remembered all the basics, the vast majority of characters and much of the actual story. It's all in the nuance and this book has a lot more of that than I expected. Maybe that was my biggest surprise. But, hey, that's the joy of this project! ~~ Hal C F Astell