Farewell Miss Julie Logan: A Barrie Omnibus: The Little White Bird: The Twelve-Pound Look: Farewell Miss Julie Logan

J.M. Barrie

Jul 2010 · Canongate Books

About this ebook

This selection of J M Barrie's work covers three different genres and all the most telling themes found in his writing: Scotland, childhood, fantasy and sentimentality, sexual anxiety, theatrical invention, social comedy and proto-feminism. The disturbing prose fable of The Little White Bird contains the first and most original exploration of the Peter Pan theme, properly set in the wider context of a middle-aged man's engagement with creation, fantasy and loneliness-a theme which made Barrie world-famous and haunted him for the rest of his life. In a one-act play of scintillating satire, The Twelve-Pound Look exposes the pomposities of male pride and public success in 1910 from the point of view of an ex-wife unexpectedly returned as her (be)knighted husband's typist. Written in diary form and telling of an uncanny romance in a remote winter glen, Farewell Miss Julie Logan evokes the author's fascination with longing, death and loss in a novella which can stand with the stories of the supernatural and which itself raises questions about the nature of romance fiction. This volume offers an exciting reassessment of one of Scotland's most unusual and misrepresented writers.

About the author

James Matthew Barrie lived from 1860 to 1937. He was born in Scotland, the son of a weaver. He adored his mother, Margaret Ogilvie - it was the Scottish fashion in those days for wives to keep their maiden names - and, although the family were quite poor she made sure that he was educated. James moved to London in 1885 to follow a literary career. He first wrote short stories and later successful plays which made him rich and famous. He was very nervous when he gave Peter Pan to his theatrical manager because it was a child's fantasy, the first and only time he had ever written especially for children. But Peter Pan with its flying and theatrical devices was a huge success and continues to be performed today. In 1911 James Barrie turned his play into a novel, one of the most thrilling and magical of all the great adventures that have been written for children.