Peter Pan's Shadows in the Literary Imagination

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.

List of contents

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

About the author

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.

Product details

• Authors: Kirsten Stirling, Stirling Kirsten
• Publisher: Routledge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 10.11.2014
• EAN: 9781138849693
• ISBN: 978-1-138-84969-3
• Series: Children's Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Children's and young people's books > Children's books up to 11 years of age; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Other languages / Other literatures; LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Children's & teenage literature studies, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form