Peter Pan's Shadows in the Literary Imagination
Routledge – 2012 – 172 pages
This book is a literary analysis of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in all its different versions -- key rewritings, dramatisations, prequels, and sequels -- and includes a synthesis of the main critical interpretations of the text over its history. A comprehensive and intelligent study of the Peter Pan phenomenon, this study discusses the book’s complicated textual history, exploring its origins in the Harlequinade theatrical tradition and British pantomime in the nineteenth century. Stirling investigates potential textual and extra-textual sources for Peter Pan, the critical tendency to seek sources in Barrie’s own biography, and the proliferation of prequels and sequels aiming to explain, contextualize, or close off, Barrie’s exploration of the imagination. The sources considered include Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s Starcatchers trilogy, Régis Loisel’s six-part Peter Pan graphic novel in French (1990-2004), Andrew Birkin’s The Lost Boys series, the films Hook (1991), Peter Pan (2003) and Finding Neverland (2004), and Geraldine McCaughrean’s "official sequel" Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), among others.
"Her analysis is compelling… [An] interesting and highly readable text." - Kayla McKinney Wiggins, Mythlore
"Stirling's bibliography is a model of thorough research and her analysis offers fresh ideas for Peter Pan Studies." - Children's Literature Assocation Quarterly.
Acknowledgements Abbreviations and References Introduction: The Shadow of Peter Pan 1. Origins and Storytelling 2. Peter and Pantomime 3. Wendy and Peter 4. Before Peter Pan: Loisel 5. Imagining Barrie 6. Ending Peter Pan 7. Sequels Bibliography Index
Kirsten Stirling teaches in the English department of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She is the author of Bella Caledonia: Woman, Nation, Text (2008) and has published articles on Scottish literature and the poetry of John Donne.