Peter Pan: Centennial Edition

J. M. Barrie

May 1987 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Generations of readers have traveled to Neverland and all the secret places of a child's heart. A story rich in adventure, humor, and sadness, J.M. Barrie's masterpiece remains a stirring call to flights of imagination.

With a magic and emotional appeal unmatched by any other story, Barrie’s Peter Pan speaks directly to childhood’s dreams and desires with an imaginative genius that evokes both laughter and tears. Peter, the boy would wouldn’t grow up; Nana, the Darling children’s nurse and pet Newfoundland; deliciously dreadful Captain Hook, who is stalked by a crocodile with a clock in his stomach; and Tinker Bell, “quite a common fairy,” who swears like a sailor and is murderously jealous—these characters of startling originality are rich, funny, mischievously insightful, and a joy to read about again and again. The result is a masterpiece of literature that has been working its timeless wonderment on us since it first appeared.
 
With an Afterword by Alison Lurie
Illustrated by Sergio Martinez

About the author

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) was a bestselling writer well before he created Peter Pan. His famous children’s plays grew from stories he had made up for the young sons of his friends Arthur and Sylvia Davies. First performed in 1904, Peter Pan was such a success it became an annual Christmas event. In 1911, Barrie novelized the play. Upon his death, Barrie left the copyright for Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London.
 
Alison Lurie is the bestselling author of such novels as The War Between the Tates and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Foreign Affairs. She has also written extensively about children’s literature, including Don’t Tell the Grownups, Boys and Girls Forever, and, as co-editor, the Garland Library of Children’s Classics. She is F. J. Whiton Professor of American Literature Emeritas at Cornell University.