Margaret Ogilvy
by J. M. Barrie
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In Margaret Ogilvy, author J. M. Barrie (today best remembered for his enduring children's classic Peter Pan) presents a loving, detailed portrait of his mother. As a child, Margaret had been forced to become the "woman of the house" when she was only eight years old, filling in as the household manager after her own mother's death. Her difficult early life seems to have inspired Barrie's works about children who seek desperately to cling to the carefree days of youth..
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A vivid portrait of the author's mother,, 26 June 2015
This review is from: Margaret Ogilvy (Kindle Edition)
A beautiful little book - one wants to pigeonhole it as 'biography' (of his mother), but it's much more a work of literature than that.
Barrie looks back on his life in Scotland, with his numerous siblings - though all but two remain nameless - and his parents. His father is barely mentioned, for it is his mother who seems to have been the centre of the author's life.
In early chapters we see the heartbreak she went through on the death of Barrie's elder brother, while away at school:
"I heard a listless voice that had never been listless before say 'Is that you?' I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and then the voice show more said more anxiously 'Is that you?' again. I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me.' Then I heard a cry, and my mother turned in bed, and though it was dark I knew that she was holding out her arms."
But Mother is not just a tragic or saintly character, for Barrie brings out in full her humorous character, whether devouring works by his rival, RL Stevenson (covertly - "you must remember that she only read it to persuade herself (and me) of its unworthiness, and that the reason she wanted to read the others was to get further proof.") or in her refusal to stay in bed when ill.
Both beautiful and gently amusing, I found this a book that grew on me. show less
This review is from: Margaret Ogilvy (Kindle Edition)
A beautiful little book - one wants to pigeonhole it as 'biography' (of his mother), but it's much more a work of literature than that.
Barrie looks back on his life in Scotland, with his numerous siblings - though all but two remain nameless - and his parents. His father is barely mentioned, for it is his mother who seems to have been the centre of the author's life.
In early chapters we see the heartbreak she went through on the death of Barrie's elder brother, while away at school:
"I heard a listless voice that had never been listless before say 'Is that you?' I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and then the voice show more said more anxiously 'Is that you?' again. I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me.' Then I heard a cry, and my mother turned in bed, and though it was dark I knew that she was holding out her arms."
But Mother is not just a tragic or saintly character, for Barrie brings out in full her humorous character, whether devouring works by his rival, RL Stevenson (covertly - "you must remember that she only read it to persuade herself (and me) of its unworthiness, and that the reason she wanted to read the others was to get further proof.") or in her refusal to stay in bed when ill.
Both beautiful and gently amusing, I found this a book that grew on me. show less
Having just read The Little White Bird and Peter Pan, it struck me that there may have been a little more to the characters than at first appears.
The character of Peter Pan was based on James' brother, David, who died aged 13 (so never grew up), leaving the 6 year old James having to try and fill his shoes for his mother. So it made me wonder who Hook was based on. At first i thought Hook represented the parents but having read this book i've totally had a change of mind.
So my thoughts on the matter are thus... I suppose the clue is in Hook's first name, also James. The hand that gets cut off by Peter, a metaphor for the part of James' childhood, and life, that was taken from him the day his brother died. The hand is then fed to the show more ticking crocodile that follows Hook around wanting to consume the rest of him because it likes the taste - so is this another metaphor concerning the inevitable ticking clock of life, and that James felt the loss of his brother was continuously haunting and wanting to consume more of him and his family?
Then there's Wendy, which having read this book cannot be based upon anyone other than Margaret Ogilvy herself. He mentions in the book how after his brother died, other local women who lost children would come to her to talk. Again, Wendy and the lost boys - the lost boys representing the children of the other women who went to join his brother David in heaven (Neverland).
But all that aside, this book was a heartfelt view into James' home life and very much his relationship with his mother - who he obviously cared about immensely - and is an absolute must read for all fans of J.M. Barrie's writing. The book also covers James' early literary career and what made him want to become a writer. So a very worth while read.
So what's next? After 3 books in a row, i'll be taking a literary break away from Peter Pan, Neverland and J.M. Barrie as i've got a big 'to read' folder on my Kindle that's continuously nagging to get read. But i'll definitely be coming back to these three topics in my reading in the not too distant future. show less
The character of Peter Pan was based on James' brother, David, who died aged 13 (so never grew up), leaving the 6 year old James having to try and fill his shoes for his mother. So it made me wonder who Hook was based on. At first i thought Hook represented the parents but having read this book i've totally had a change of mind.
So my thoughts on the matter are thus... I suppose the clue is in Hook's first name, also James. The hand that gets cut off by Peter, a metaphor for the part of James' childhood, and life, that was taken from him the day his brother died. The hand is then fed to the show more ticking crocodile that follows Hook around wanting to consume the rest of him because it likes the taste - so is this another metaphor concerning the inevitable ticking clock of life, and that James felt the loss of his brother was continuously haunting and wanting to consume more of him and his family?
Then there's Wendy, which having read this book cannot be based upon anyone other than Margaret Ogilvy herself. He mentions in the book how after his brother died, other local women who lost children would come to her to talk. Again, Wendy and the lost boys - the lost boys representing the children of the other women who went to join his brother David in heaven (Neverland).
But all that aside, this book was a heartfelt view into James' home life and very much his relationship with his mother - who he obviously cared about immensely - and is an absolute must read for all fans of J.M. Barrie's writing. The book also covers James' early literary career and what made him want to become a writer. So a very worth while read.
So what's next? After 3 books in a row, i'll be taking a literary break away from Peter Pan, Neverland and J.M. Barrie as i've got a big 'to read' folder on my Kindle that's continuously nagging to get read. But i'll definitely be coming back to these three topics in my reading in the not too distant future. show less
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Trinity College Booklist (1951): Class Six, Biography
119 works; 4 members
Publisher's Weekly Bestsellers Part I - 1895-1939
399 works; 8 members
Author Information
447+ Works 31,780 Members
James Matthew Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was born on May 9, 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. His idyllic boyhood was shattered by his brother's death when Barrie was six. His own grief and that of his mother influenced the rest of his life. Through his work, he sought to recapture the carefree joy of his first six years. Barrie came to show more London as a freelance writer in 1885. His early fiction, Auld Licht Idylls (1888) and A Window in Thrums (1889), were inspired by his youth in Kirriemuir. After publishing a biography of his mother Margaret Ogilvy and the autobiographical novel Sentimental Tommy, about a boy living in a dream world (1896), he concentrated on writing plays. The Admirable Crichton (1902), the story of a butler who becomes king of a desert island, helped to establish Barrie's reputation as a playwright. Meanwhile, he began to relive his childhood by telling the first Peter Pan stories to the sons of his friend, Sylvia Llewellyn Davies. The play Peter Pan was first performed in 1904 and published as a novel seven years later. Its imaginative drama, featuring the eternal boy's triumph over the grownup Captain Hook, idealizes childhood and underscores adults' inability to regain it. These resonant themes made it a classic of world literature. Barrie's later work shows his increasingly cynical view of adulthood, particularly in Dear Brutus (1917). Often considered his finest play, it concerns nine men and women whose caprices destroy a miraculous opportunity to relive their lives. Barrie married the former Mary Ansell in 1894. They divorced in 1909, never having any children. Barrie died in London on June 19, 1937. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1911
- People/Characters
- Margaret Barrie (nee Ogilvy); J. M. Barrie; Jane Ann Barrie ('the sister who cared')
- Important places
- Scotland, UK
- Dedication
- To the memory of my sister, Jane Ann
- First words
- On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was an event, the first great victory in a woman's long campaign; how they had been laboured for, the pound-note and the thirty threepenny-b... (show all)its they cost, what anxiety there was about the purchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father's unnatural coolness when he brought them in (but his face was white) -I so often heard the tale afterwards, and shared as boy and man in so many similar triumphs, that the coming of the chairs seems to be something I remember, as if I had jumped out of bed on that first day and run ben to see how they looked.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And if I also live to a time when age must dim my mind and the past comes sweeping back like the shades of night over the bare road of the present, it will not, I believe, be my youth I shall see but hers, not a boy clinging to his mother's skirt, and crying,"Wait till I'm a man, and you'll lie on feathers," but a little girl in a magenta frock and a white pinafore, who comes toward me through the long parks, singing to herself and carrying her father's dinner in a flagon.
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