"IF YOU BELIEVE, CLAP YOUR HANDS!": FIRST PLAY EDITION OF BARRIE'S IMMORTAL PETER PAN
BARRIE, J.M. Peter Pan: or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1928. Octavo, original blue cloth, paper spine and cover labels, original dust jacket.
First play edition of Barrie's timeless fantasy—"a permanent piece of children's mythology"—in the original dust jacket.
Although Barrie published about 70 books in his lifetime, Peter Pan is his only work for children, and the work for which he will always be remembered. "If one unreservedly yields one's mind and heart to its enfolding charm, then one will understand" (Silvey, 46). In 1897, Barrie became enamored of a beautiful woman named Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. He conceived the idea for Peter Pan and his band of "lost boys" after photographing Davies' young sons playing pirate games. (In this edition, Barrie dedicates the play to them.) Although first performed in 1904, the play remained unpublished until this edition. "A permanent piece of children's mythology" (Carpenter & Prichard, 404). This edition is part of the Uniform Edition of The Plays of J.M. Barrie. Preceded by the Rackham-illustrated gift edition, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1902)—which features a strikingly different version of the title character and virtually none of the now-familiar plot—and Barrie's novel version of the play's story, Peter and Wendy (1911).
Book about-fine, dust jacket with shallow chip at the head of toned spine, repaired with tape, and with tape reinforcement on verso along edges, very good.