I had known from "Peter Pan" and "The Little Minister" that Barrie was a great author, but I think this is the best I've read of his, so far.

He manages to create one of those characters that you love despite (because of?) his faults, and he surrounds him with a great supporting cast and many subplots. I recommend this highly to anyone who likes Barrie's work (or as an introduction to it).

This book tells the fascinating story of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the Darling children and their adventures in Never-Never-Never Land. They fight with pirates and enjoy their freedom. Some of the original illustrations by Alice B. Woodward are included here as well as modern plates. A nice book especially for young readers

Wow. I wasn't expecting the sequel to be of the same caliber as the first book ("Sentimental Tommy"), but if anything it's better. Surely nobody reading these books can doubt that J. M. Barrie was one of the greatest authors of the last 100 years -- or the last 1000.

This book's theme is love, and the protagonist's search for it.

When I read "Sentimental Tommy", I left a review recommending it. I recommend them both much more strongly after reading this one. The set is like a symphony, developing its many themes slowly (but always enjoyably) into a single, unified climax that is one of the best I've seen in any book. The writing throughout is exceptional; what is more it is enjoyable and witty.

The characters could not be more three-dimensional if they tried (thank goodness they don't!) and the hero especially is one of the best I've seen in this regard.

Finally, the books do what only great books can: they challenge the way you think about people.

If it weren't such an overused cliche, I'd say that I gave this book 10 out of 5. But it is, so I won't. I'll just say that you probably will find no better novels, so pounce if you can find a reasonably-priced edition.

(Note: Make sure to read "Sentimental Tommy" before this book).

This classic comedy may be difficult for some to get through but for those that appreciate plays and such it will be appreciated.

I thought this was yet another one of James Barrie's wonderful plays. It sort of had an "It's a Wonderful Life" theme. And shows how if people had another chance in life what they would have done differently. It's a cute and great play and I would encourage people to read it.

Victorians are experiencing something of a comeback after decades of censure as the strange, repressed, half-crazy relatives we don't want to tell anyone about. We are discovering that the Victorians were not so different from us.

The Victorians did, however, produce their own brand of eccentricity and none are as delightfully eccentric as the Victorian/Edwardian writers for children discussed in Inventing Wonderland. Jackie Wullschlager starts with that greatest of all Wonderland writers, the master himself Lewis Carroll and ends with Jazz Age Pooh creator A.A. Milne.

The eccentricity of these Victorian writers is their confident, and sometimes troubling, obsession with childhood itself. Wullschlager assures us, correctly, that these writers' obsessions did not cross the line into pedophilic behavior. To 21st century sensibilities this seems scarcely creditable, especially after reading letters by Lewis Carroll to various girl children. Carroll, Lear, Barrie and Grahame's effusions about childhood can only be understood within the context of the Victorian age, the age that produced and adored Wordsworth's overly quoted (then and now) "But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home" (Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood).

Wullschlager is, I think, a bit too dismissive of Milne, who is regarded in the text as a has-been, clinging to the last remnants of the Victorian celebration of childhood. Wullschlager's overall point in this regard, however, is well made. The Victorians invented and took seriously the concept of childhood as a wonderland. Consequently, they produced children's writers of a truly magnificent stature. When the concept of childhood=innocence & pleasure was abandoned, in the early 20th century (thank you, Freud!), the result was an almost tongue-in-cheek parody of the earlier writers. It just wasn't possible to take childhood that seriously anymore.

Writers for children have of course continued to produce masterpieces, largely in the fantasy area, but that particular brand of unself-conscious Victorian nonsense and idyllicism may be lost forever. The Victorians are not as strange to us as we may like to believe, but they are certainly unreproducable.

Recommendation: Interesting, well-written, well-paced. Not the most complete biographical sketches but a complete analysis of biography and art. Give it a try.

JM Barrie wrote this curious memoir of his mother after her death. I don't know much about Barrie's personal life, I found it psychologically qute strange. He seemed obsessed with the idea of being her son and being close to her, yearning for her to mother him and to remain forever a little boy. (Yes - this was the writer of Peter Pan all right). He gives a vivid pictures of a provocative, strong minded, intelligent Scotswoman who wanted things very much HER way and was extremely mysterious and hard to pin down. Yet Barrie clearly got a great deal out of his relationship with her and genuinely loved her. This touching book made me feel there was a great deal more to find out about Barrie and now I want to read more about him. I do recommend this book.

J.M. Barrie entitled his book "Peter Pan and Wendy" because it was not only about the boy who never grew up but also about the girl who indulged him in his childishness. The relationship between the two children was apparently intended to be a sarcastic parody on the relationship between the immature father - Mr Darling -and the syrupy mother. We all recognize the character of the man who won't grow up and many women sigh and say, "I have three children - and my husband makes four." However what is not so obvious is that many women partly encourage their men to stay in this emotionally crippled role. For instance, there is the strange habit of women washing men's clothes for them. Anyone who can't operate a washing machine shouldn't be let loose in the family car but women persist in treating men as if they are incapable of organising their personal belongings and men cooperate in this. The husband of a friend of mine will say to his wife, "I don't know where my red jumper is." She puts aside the highly intellectual work she's doing, goes to the cupboard and says, "There's your red jumper - under the green one where I put it (after I washed and dried it)" They have a very happy marriage - unlike my own where I refused to do that sort of thing. I think the reality is that people feel good being treated as a baby some of the time. Men like being fussed over and having unnecessary things done for them. Women like to feel protected, at least some of the time. Both sexes like to act childishly at times, the classic behaviour of adults feeding each other food off their own spoons being a very obvious sign of two people falling in love. It seems that Barrie touched on something that runs quite deep through adult romances. What is interesting is that children don't notice any of that nor the rather snide and sarcastic way that Barrie regards the whole issue. Instead they love the magic of the imaginary island and the idea of being able to fly and all the wild and woolly characters. They love the fun of it all and they ignore the issues of who should grow up and when. Good on them, I say!

Jacqueline Rose has done some serious scholarship in literary criticism, but this work is dubious, at best. I'm not sure why she misses the mark so poorly in this extended essay on the link between children's fiction and the publishing industry. But the work is very un-focused and rather trite. The approach is a bit dated, and I can imagine that perhaps the book is more an extended discourse on the theoretical apparatus that she seems to be enamored with rather than a solid interpretation of Peter Pan. The book is really an odd one, and it left me feeling so disgusted that I did not wish to finish the tome. Although, the other reviewers are a bit too vituperative in their critique, this book really strikes me as somewhat immature.

Rose's analysis is dubious. She attempts to make the claim that Barrie created a new genre of fantasy with the publication of Peter Pan. The problem is that Barrie's books about Peter Pan are actually components of a genre well-studied and documented for hundreds of years. Even a cursory read of scholarship in folklore would have clearly demonstrated to Rose that Peter Pan is a Marchen, a genre of folklore in which a poor, obscure hero is called to complete acts of bravery in a land of fantasy and magic. There are numerous other problems with her analysis. Even reading this study as an essay on contemporary social issues is a confusing exercise, at best, because Rose's style tends to obfuscate rather than to provide any semblance of clarity. Sorry to be so critical of literary criticism, but incoherence and bad writing simply do not belong in scholarly discourse.

I am a high school student and I am not ashamed to say that i have an affinity for children's literature, particularly english, such as Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter (all of them), and especially PETER PAN. This literature contains a magic that this author proceeds to bash at every chance she gets. I mean, are children supposed to read about oil spills and war? Preserve the magic of childhood people!