Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 38 on 11/04/2008.

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JM Barrie

Scottish journalist, playwright and children’s book writer, JM Barrie became world famous with his story about a little boy who never grew up.

James Matthew Barrie was born on 9th May 1860 in the Lowland village of Kirriemuir, in Forfarshire (now Angus).

His father, David Barrie was a handloom weaver, and mother, Margaret Ogilvy, the daughter of a stonemason.

James was the ninth of 10 children and his imagination was nutured as a youngster by his mother, who read her children adventure stories in the evenings.

When James was six, his 13-year-old brother David died in an ice-skating accident. His mother was devastated, and so James tried to fill David’s place in her affections, even by wearing his clothes.

James’ mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her, a theme that would profoundly affect the young author.

At the age of 13, James left Kirriemuir. At school he was interested in theatre and devoured works by such authors as Jules Verne, Mayne Reid and James Fenimore Cooper. He was a small, shy child (he would grow to only five feet tall as an adult) and these feelings of being a physical and social failure would affect him for much of his adult life.

Later he studied at the University of Edinburgh, moving to London in 1885 to work as a freelance writer for fashionable magazines such as The Pall Mall Gazette. During this period James knocked about with other eminent literary figures including Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, HG Wells and GB Shaw.

James’ first successful book was Auld Licht Idylls, first published in 1888. It showed sketches o.....

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By JM Barrie

Section : Scottish Legends

Page number : 41