All children, except one, grow up. Thus begins a great classic of childrens literature that we all remember as magical. What we tend to forget, because the tale of Peter Pan and Neverland has been so relentlessly boiled down, hashed up, and coated in saccharine, is that J.M. Barries original version is also witty, sophisticated, and delightfully odd. The Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, live a very proper middle-class life in Edwardian London, but they also happen to have a Newfoundland for a nurse. The text is full of such throwaway gems as Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter Pan when she was tidying up her childrens minds, and is peppered with deliberately obscure vocabulary including embonpoint, quietus, and pluperfect. Lest we forget, it was written in 1904, a relatively innocent age in which a plot about abducted children must have seemed more safely fanciful. Also, perhaps, it was an age that expected more of its childrens books, for Peter Pan has a suppleness, lightness, and intelligence that are literary in the best sense. In a typical exchange with the dastardly Captain Hook, Peter Pan describes himself as youth… joy… a little bird that has broken out of the egg, and the author interjects: This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form. A book for adult readers-aloud to revel in–and it just might teach young listeners to fly. <p> This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. <p> This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. <p> Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: <p> I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven?who is that moving??eight nine seven, dot and carry seven?dont speak, my own?and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door?quiet, child?dot and carry child?there, youve done it!?did I say nine nine seven?
<p>…Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillings?dont speak?measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six?dont waggle your finger?whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings?and so on it went, and it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
<p>…It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
<p>…Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on sternly, I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we dont go out to dinner to-night, and if I dont go out to dinner to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I dont go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets.
<p>…They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze with light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling round and round, not on the floor but in the air.
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