Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie

Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with whom he had forged a special relationship. Mrs Llewelyn Davies' death from cancer came within a few years after the death of her husband. Barrie was named as coguardian of the boys & unofficially adopted them. The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys, & Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. It's also been suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at 13 deeply affected their mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie & the Lost Boys, the death was 'a catastrophe beyond belief, & one from which she never fully recovered. If Margaret Ogilvy drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration.