J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet (9 May 1860 to 19 June 1937), was a Scottish novelist and playwright. He was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland, the son of a handloom weaver, was educated in Scotland, and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy with magical adventures in Kensington Gardens, first included in his 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird, and then the 1904 West End fairy play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, about an ageless boy and a girl named Wendy who have adventures in Neverland. Peter Pan overshadowed his other work and is credited with popularising the name Wendy. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys after their parents died, was made a baronet in 1913 and a member of the Order of Merit in 1922, and before his death gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.