I'm glad I took the time to read the annotated version, as it gave me more insights than if I'd read just the story on its own. While I still love the central story, it's certainly more poignant and often grimmer than I anticipated. ( )

The Annotated Peter Pan is the definitive source for the Peter Pan story. Maria Tarter gives readers an in-depth look at J.M. Barrie's life, including the influences on Peter Pan. His brother died young, and Barrie, in an attempt to cheer his mother, would don his brother's clothing and pretend to be young. Barrie and his first wife we childless, but he adopted the five Llewelyn Davis children, who became the inspiration for Peter Pan . In fact, all of the Darling family members are named after the Llewelyn Davis family.

Once Tater established Barrie's life, she included the original text of Peter Pan and added her annotations in the margins. Barrie took cues from other works, including Treasure Island and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. It's clear from the notes that Tarter did myriad research and that Barrie's work will continue to be read and analyzed for generations.

Readers are then given a glimpse into Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the novel that set-up Peter Pan. This story introduces us to an infant Peter, and is filled with many color photographs. Then we get a glimpse into the many film and theater versions of Peter Pan. The book concludes with a letter from the Great Ormond Street Hospital, the owners of Peter Pan's copyright.

This is a well-written and well-researched book into the life of Sir J. M. Barrie and the story of Peter Pan. Through the writing, you realize that there's a little bit of Peter in all of us. ( )

This book is unlike any other I've ever read. Part of this has to do with the notes that come with an annotated version, and they are fascinating, and part has to do with the story itself. I am familiar with the story of Peter Pan, but never had read it. I was in for a surprise. Barrie tells us the story from the perspective of a narrator who continually drops in and makes sure we know he is still there. The story itself is so creative I am astonished by it. The tone is playful and impish and yet told in serious adult-like language. And the idea of a child (Peter) with no memory for past events and very little ability to look ahead to future events is intriguing and probably true of most children. From reading the added text, I understand the different sources Barrie probably used as influences, such as adventure books like Treasure Island (for the pirates), Hans Christian Andersen (for the mermaids) and even Freudian references. Excellent book. ( )

The annotations mostly consist of bits of the editor's analysis of J. M. Barrie's writing style and themes, and are generally pretty skippable, but there's plenty of other supplementary material in this volume, including a short but illuminating biography of Barrie, a (slightly pretentious) essay on the text, a very detailed outline Barrie wrote for a silent film version that was never produced, some beautiful illustrations from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (an earlier work that introduced Peter Pan as an infant), a brief overview of various theatrical treatments of Peter Pan and of Barrie's life, and a fair amount of other stuff.

As for the novel itself, I hadn't read it since I was a kid, and it's actually much better than I remember it being. It's also stranger than I remember, with a few elements that sit on the borderline between the whimsical and the just plain weird. (Oddly enough, it's the super-intelligent nursemaid dog that breaks my suspension of disbelief, not the flying, or the children who never grow up, or any of the more obviously fantastical elements.) It does have a lot of charm, though, and some of the adventures are genuinely pretty exciting. And it doesn't take the editor's analytical notes to make it clear that there's also something a little deeper and subtler going on, too, that this book actually contains some rather perceptive observations about the nature of children and adults and imagination. If nothing else, Peter really is the archetypal little boy, embodying not just the innocence and playfulness of children, but all their self-centeredness and fickleness and irresponsibility, too. And his refusal to grow up and lose any of that while everyone else around him does is unexpectedly poignant; I swear, I got a little choked up on the last chapter.

Unfortunately, though, like everything else, the novel is very much a product of its time. And while I can just about get past my vague discomfort at the idea that boys are allowed to be Lost Boys, while girls have to be their mothers and look after them, it's kind of impossible not to cringe a little at the portrayal of the "redskins." They're not, of course, meant to be a realistic portrayal of Native Americans any more than the pirates are meant to be realistic pirates, but that's a lot less problematic with pirates. It's not, I suppose, remotely as bad as it could be, but still, I don't know that I'd be willing to give a modern child a copy of this story without at least a short explanation about how "pickaninny" is really not an acceptable word. Which is kind of a shame, because there is a definite "timeless classic" quality to it, otherwise., and I can certainly see why it's worked its way so thoroughly into the popular imagination. ( )